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Lawsuit Claims White House Worked with Fox News to Peddle Seth Rich Conspiracies

HeadlineAug 02, 2017

An explosive new lawsuit filed by a former Fox News contributor accuses the network of working with the White House to peddle fake news about the murder of Seth Rich. Rich was an aide at the Democratic National Committee who was fatally shot in Washington, D.C., in July 2016. In May of this year, Fox News published a piece online titled “DC Murder Mystery: Slain DNC Staffer Was Wikileaks’ Source, Say Investigators.”

The article claimed that Rich—not the Russians—provided WikiLeaks with internal emails from the DNC. But within weeks Fox retracted the story. Now the only person quoted in the piece—retired D.C. police detective Rod Wheeler—is claiming Fox knowingly used made-up quotes from him.

In the lawsuit, Rod Wheeler claims he was used as a pawn in a plan by the White House to “shift the blame from Russia and help put to bed speculation that President Trump colluded with Russia in an attempt to influence the outcome of the presidential election.”

At the time, Wheeler was being paid to investigate the Rich killing by a Trump supporter in Texas named Ed Butowsky. The lawsuit also claims that Wheeler received a text message from Butowsky saying, “Not to add any more pressure but the president just read the article. He wants the article out immediately.”

When the article was published, Wheeler says it included quotes of his that had been fabricated. When he complained, he alleges Butowsky told him, “One day you’re going to win an award for having said those things you didn’t say.”

We’ll have more on this story later in the broadcast.

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