The Seth Rich murder conspiracy is a long and winding one. The as-of-yet unsolved murder case has been warped into something out of a spy thriller by conspiracy theorists who claim that Rich disseminated leaked DNC emails to WikiLeaks, and was murdered for it.
Rod Wheeler is a private investigator who was retained by the Rich family to investigate Seth’s death. Wealth manager and Fox News contributor, Ed Butowsky, allegedly bankrolled Wheeler’s hire.
Butowsky was working with investigative journalist Malia Zimmerman, who, in May of 2017, published a piece in which she allegedly falsely quoted Wheeler. Now, the private investigator has filed suit against Butowsky, Zimmerman, 21st Century Fox, and Fox News.
It must be strongly noted that these are all unverified allegations, and they should be treated as such.
Here are the ten most interesting portions of the lawsuit documents (any supplementary text from myself will appear in bold, or be clearly noted):
1. False Quotes
“My investigation up to this point shows there was some degree of email exchange between Seth Rich and WikiLeaks,” said Wheeler.
“My investigation shows someone within the DC government, Democratic National Committee or Clinton team is blocking the murder investigation from going forward,” Wheeler said. “That is unfortunate. Seth Rich’s murder is unsolved as a result of that.”
2. Alleged Presidential Involvement
Alleged text from Butowsky to Wheeler: “Not to add any more pressure but the president just read the article. He wants the article out immediately. It’s now all up to you. But don’t feel the pressure.”
Alleged voicemail from Butowsky to Wheeler: “A couple minutes ago I got a note that we have the full, uh, attention of the White House, on this. And, tomorrow, let’s close this deal, whatever we’ve got to do. But you can feel free to say that the White House is on to this now.”
Very shortly after the article was published, Mr. Wheeler called Butowsky and demanded an explanation for the false statements about him in Zimmerman’s article. Butowsky stated that the quotes were included because that is the way the president wanted the article, referring to President Donald Trump. A few days later, Butowsky wrote to Zimmerman, “I didn’t tell you yet but the federal government is involved at this moment, behind the scenes and believe your story.”
3. Agenda
As it turned out, Butowsky and Zimmerman were not simply Good Samaritans attempting to solve a murder. Rather, they were interested in advancing a political agenda for the Trump Administration. Specifically, it was their aim to have Mr. Wheeler confirm that: (i) Seth Rich was responsible for the leak of DNC emails to WikiLeaks; and (ii) Seth Rich was murdered by a Democrat operative because he leaked the emails to WikiLeaks.
Statement allegedly made by Butowsky: “The most important thing is this. Everyone, there’s so many people throughout Trump’s four years and maybe eight years are always going to fall back on the idea that he is not legitimate and the Russians got him elected. This information [about Seth Rich providing emails to WikiLeaks] changes all of that.”
Butowsky and Zimmerman were not in this alone. Rather, in the weeks and months leading up to the publication of Zimmerman’s May 16, 2017, article, Butowsky kept in regular contact with Trump Administration officials — including Mr. Spicer, Mr. Bannon and Director of Public Affairs at the Department of Justice, Sarah Flores — regarding his efforts relating to Seth Rich. As noted above, Butowsky informed Mr. Wheeler two days before Zimmerman’s article came out that President Trump had read it and wanted it published “immediately.”
Prior to that, Butowsky and Mr. Wheeler met with Mr. Spicer and provided him with a copy of Mr. Wheeler’s investigative notes. Mr. Spicer asked to be kept abreast of developments and, upon information and belief, Butowsky did keep Mr. Spicer abreast of developments.
4. Trump Denies
The following isn’t in the court documents, but is pertinent to the story. On Tuesday, White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders denied any administration involvement in this lawsuit:
“The president had no knowledge of the story and it is completely untrue that there was White House involvement in the story. … Beyond that, this is ongoing litigation and I refer you to the actual parties involved, which aren’t the White House.”
5. Missing Quotes
On May 11, 2017, Zimmerman sent Mr. Wheeler a draft of her story regarding the Seth Rich murder. The draft did not contain any quotes from Mr. Wheeler to the effect that Seth Rich had sent any emails to WikiLeaks, nor did the draft quote Mr. Wheeler as saying that the DNC, Democratic Party or Clintons were engaged in a cover-up.
Less than 24 hours later, on May 15, 2017, Zimmerman informed Mr. Wheeler that she would be publishing her story immediately. The story was published the following morning with the false quotations from Mr. Wheeler that were clearly fabricated to lend support to the claim that Seth Rich, and not the Russians, was the source for the DNC emails released on WikiLeaks.
6. Fox Retracts
On May 16, 2017, Mr. Wheeler called Zimmerman and confronted her about the use of false statements. Zimmerman told Mr. Wheeler that she would have the statements removed from the article. However they were not removed and, later that day, Zimmerman told Mr. Wheeler that she had been instructed by her bosses at Fox News to leave the false quotes in the story.
On May 23, 2017, Fox finally retracted Zimmerman’s article and issued the following statement, “The May 16 story was not initially subjected to the high degree of editorial scrutiny we require for all our reporting. Upon appropriate review the article was found not to meet those standards and has since been removed,” the statement said. “We will continue to investigate this story and will provide updates as warranted.” However, Fox did not clear Mr. Wheeler’s name and never admitted that Zimmerman had misquoted him.
7. Anxiety
Throughout March 2017, Butowsky exhibited a great deal of anxiety with Jack Burkman, a Republican lobbyist who claimed to have evidence that Seth Rich was killed by Russian operatives after Seth Rich discovered that the Russians had hacked the DNC. Obviously this narrative would contradict the story Butowsky wanted to write, and on March 2, 2017, Butowsky asked Zimmerman for Mr. Berkman’s contact information and stated, “I need to shut him up.”
8. Detective
Mr. Wheeler was able to secure an interview with detective Della-Camera, with the Washington D.C. Metro Police Department on April 24th, 2017. Detective Della-Camera is the lead homicide detective on the Seth Rich case. The night before the interview, Mr. Wheeler received an email from Butowsky that stated: “Della-Camera is either helping us or we will go after him as being part of the cover-up.” Mr. Wheeler eventually met with detective Della-Camera on April 25, 2017. Detective Della-Camera confirmed that he still believed that Seth Rich’s murder was the result of a robbery gone bad. Detective Della-Camera also stated that he had nothing to say or to show that the shooting was related to emails or anything other than a street robbery.
9. Admitting
Mr. Wheeler confronted Zimmerman again about her false statements, as well as her false claim to Joel Rich that “much of the information” from her article came from Mr. Wheeler. Mr. Wheeler stated: “I kinda came across a response that you had to Joel … the thing that I’m a little concerned about is that it says ‘as you know, much of our information came from a private investigator, Rod Wheeler, who we understand was working on behalf of you.'”
Zimmerman responded, “that’s the email that Fox asked me to send him. They wrote it for me and they told me to send it to him.” Mr. Wheeler challenged her: “But that’s not accurate though because much, much of the information did not come from me.” In response, Zimmerman admitted: “Umm, well not not not … Not the part about the emails. Not the part about, I mean about the connection to WikiLeaks, but the rest of the quotes in the story did. A lot of the quotes in the story did.”
Later in the same conversation, Butowsky also conceded that the quotes were not made by Mr. Wheeler: “One day you’re going to win an award for having said those things you didn’t say.”
10. Fox Won’t Apologize
Fox did not clear Mr. Wheeler’s name and never admitted that Zimmerman had misquoted him. As such, Mr. Wheeler requested and attended a meeting with Ms. Brandi and Jay Wallace, Fox News’ Executive Vice President of News and Editorial. Mr. Wheeler explained to Ms. Brandi and Mr. Wallace that he had not provided Zimmerman with the quotations she used in her article. He also informed Ms. Brandi and Mr. Wallace that Zimmerman had admitted that Mr. Wheeler had not provided her the information regarding WikiLeaks that she attributed to him in the article. Nevertheless, to this day Fox has not issued any statement admitting that the quotes attributed to Mr. Wheeler were not made by him.
Multiple parties, including Butowsky, claim the allegations made in Wheeler’s lawsuit are patently false. The entire court document can be read here.