Family of Seth Rich Sues Fox News Over Retracted Article
- 6 years ago
Family of Seth Rich Sues Fox News Over Retracted Article
It claims that a reporter for the network, Malia Zimmerman, and a regular Fox News guest, Ed Butowsky, intentionally fabricated a story
that portrayed Mr. Rich as the person who leaked thousands of internal Democratic National Committee emails to WikiLeaks in 2016, which released them to the public in an act that proved damaging to Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign.
By MICHAEL M. GRYNBAUMMARCH 13, 2018
The parents of Seth Rich, the young Democratic aide whose unsolved murder became grist for right-wing conspiracy theories about the 2016 presidential race, filed a lawsuit on Tuesday against Fox News, claiming
that the network’s coverage helped fuel damaging rumors about their son.
That story, published on the Fox News website on May 16, 2017, implied
that the murder of Mr. Rich on the streets of Washington occurred in retaliation for his having leaked the emails.
No evidence to support that theory emerged during an investigation by the Washington Metropolitan Police Department, and Mr. Rich’s family said they believed
that Mr. Rich, then 27, was killed during an attempted robbery.
Still, the theory about Mr. Rich persisted, cited by prominent conservatives like Newt Gingrich
and right-wing broadcasters like Rush Limbaugh and Alex Jones of InfoWars.
It claims that a reporter for the network, Malia Zimmerman, and a regular Fox News guest, Ed Butowsky, intentionally fabricated a story
that portrayed Mr. Rich as the person who leaked thousands of internal Democratic National Committee emails to WikiLeaks in 2016, which released them to the public in an act that proved damaging to Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign.
By MICHAEL M. GRYNBAUMMARCH 13, 2018
The parents of Seth Rich, the young Democratic aide whose unsolved murder became grist for right-wing conspiracy theories about the 2016 presidential race, filed a lawsuit on Tuesday against Fox News, claiming
that the network’s coverage helped fuel damaging rumors about their son.
That story, published on the Fox News website on May 16, 2017, implied
that the murder of Mr. Rich on the streets of Washington occurred in retaliation for his having leaked the emails.
No evidence to support that theory emerged during an investigation by the Washington Metropolitan Police Department, and Mr. Rich’s family said they believed
that Mr. Rich, then 27, was killed during an attempted robbery.
Still, the theory about Mr. Rich persisted, cited by prominent conservatives like Newt Gingrich
and right-wing broadcasters like Rush Limbaugh and Alex Jones of InfoWars.