Private eye: Cops bailed from meeting on Seth Rich, Russia probes
"WASHINGTON – Detectives leading the Seth Rich murder investigation agreed to meet with Capitol Hill investigators to discuss evidence surrounding the alleged hacking of Democratic National Committee emails during the 2016 presidential election, a private eye claims."
http://www.wnd.com/2017/07/private-eye- ... it-probes/33
Lawsuit alleges Fox News made up quotes in Seth Rich story, was pressured by Trump to publish
"lawsuit filed Tuesday lays out an explosive tale of Trump allies, the White House and Fox News Channel conspiring to push a false story about Democratic leaks and an unsolved killing in order to distract attention from the Russia investigation that has been swirling around the president.
The lawsuit was filed against Fox by an investigator who had been looking into the killing of Seth Rich, a former Democratic National Committee staff member killed in 2016 in what police say was a botched robbery. The investigator alleges that Fox quoted him as saying things he never said and was willing to show President Donald Trump its story before it was posted online."
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/33
Lawsuit Asserts White House Role in Fox News Article on Seth Rich
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The private detective at the center of a Fox News article about the death of a young Democratic aide claims that the White House and a wealthy Trump supporter urged the network to publish the article as part of a scheme to blunt speculation about the president’s ties to Russia, according to a lawsuit filed Tuesday.
Rod Wheeler, who was hired by the family of the aide, Seth Rich, to look into his death, said in the suit that the network fabricated quotations from him in an article about Mr. Rich on FoxNews.com. Mr. Wheeler states that the network was aware that he had not said the statements yet it published them “with reckless disregard for their truth.”
The network later retracted the article, saying it did not meet its standards.
In the suit, Mr. Wheeler, who is a Fox News contributor, asserts that he was a pawn in a broader plan by the White House, a Trump supporter named Ed Butowsky and Fox News 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.”
The lawsuit, alleging defamation and racial discrimination, was filed Tuesday morning in the United States District Court in the Southern District of New York. It named Fox News, 21st Century Fox, Mr. Butowsky and the author of the article, Malia Zimmerman, as defendants.
Mr. Rich, who worked for the Democratic National Committee, was fatally shot in Washington, D.C., in July 2016. The case is unsolved. The retracted article, citing law enforcement sources, said Mr. Rich had shared thousands of D.N.C. emails with WikiLeaks — a theory that would undercut the assertions that Russia had interfered in the election on behalf of Mr. Trump.
Continue reading the main story
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/01/busi ... wsuit.html33
Dallas financier pushed fake Seth Rich story to divert attention from Trump-Russia probe, suit
Updated at 8:35 p.m.: Revised throughout with new information.
"A federal lawsuit accuses a Dallas-area financial adviser of orchestrating a "fake news" story with Fox News and the Trump White House to distract the public from the Russia investigation."
https://www.dallasnews.com/news/dallas/ ... -suit-says33
Seth Rich Case: Fox News Made Fake News to Protect Trump, Lawsuit Alleges
The private investigator who investigated the unsolved murder of Democratic National Committee aide Seth Rich claimed in a lawsuit Tuesday that a Fox News reporter put words in his mouth to create a fake news story.
Rod Wheeler claims Fox’s Malia Zimmerman made up two quotes attributed to him in her May 16 story, which implied that Rich was killed for leaking internal DNC emails to Wikileaks.
“Mr. Wheeler — who was the only named source quoted in the article — did not make these statements,” the lawsuit states.
Wheeler, a former Washington, D.C. detective and sometime Fox News contributor, said he complained to Ed Butowsky, the Trump supporter who hired him to probe the killing of the DNC data analyst, and was told “that is the way the President wanted the article.”
Related: DNC Staffer's Murder Draws Fresh Conspiracy Theories
“The motivation” for the Rich article was to divert attention away from the ongoing Russia investigation and “help put to bed speculation that President Trump colluded with Russia in an attempt to influence the outcome of the Presidential election,” Wheeler said in his federal lawsuit, which was filed in the Southern District of New York.
“Zimmerman, Butowsky and Fox had created fake news to advance President Trump’s agenda,” the suit states. “Mr. Wheeler was subsequently forced to correct the false record and, as a result, lost all credibility in the eyes of the public.”
Butowsky did not return a call from NBC News for comment. But in an interview with MSNBC contributor Gabriel Sherman, he dismissed the Wheeler lawsuit with an expletive and denied sharing the Fox article with the White House.
“I’ve never spoken to Trump in my life,” he said.
Asked about the allegations, Fox's president of news Jay Wallace released the following statement:
“The accusation that FoxNews.com published Malia Zimmerman’s story to help detract from coverage of the Russia collusion issue is completely erroneous. The retraction of this story is still being investigated internally and we have no evidence that Rod Wheeler was misquoted by Zimmerman. Additionally, FOX News vehemently denies the race discrimination claims in the lawsuit — the dispute between Zimmerman and Rod Wheeler had nothing to do with race.”
Fox News retracted Zimmerman’s story a week after it was published, but not before the report caught fire with Trump supporters, who called it proof that the Russians were not behind the DNC breach as U.S. law enforcement and intelligence agencies believe.
SNIP
Wheeler, who is African-American, also claims he was discriminated against by Fox because of his race and is seeking unspecified damages.
Wheeler’s lawyer is Douglas Wigdor, who is representing several other former Fox News workers who have filed lawsuits against the network alleging discrimination, sexual harassment and other workplace issues.
Butowsky, a Dallas-based financial adviser, is also a Fox News contributor. After Rich was murdered in July 2016, in what Washington D.C. police believe was a botched robbery, he urged the Rich family to hire Wheeler and offered to pick up the tab, according to a spokesman for the Rich family.
But after Wheeler was quoted by Zimmerman saying there was evidence to support the theory that Rich had been in contact with WikiLeaks before his death, the Rich family distanced itself from the private investigator.
Responding to the Wheeler lawsuit, family spokesman Brad Bauman said in a statement: “While we can’t speak to the evidence that you now have, we are hopeful that this brings an end to what has been the most emotionally difficult time in our lives and an end to the conspiracy theories surrounding our beloved Seth.”
Wheeler also claims in his lawsuit he and Butowsky met with then-White House spokesman Sean Spicer on April 20 “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.”
Butowsky was also in “regular contact” with White House Chief Strategist Steve Bannon and Department of Justice spokeswoman Sarah Isgur Flores “regarding his efforts relating to Seth Rich,” the suit states.
White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders insisted Tuesday they were not involved in the Fox News story about Rich. "The president didn’t have knowledge of this story, the White House didn’t have any involvement in this story and beyond that, it's ongoing litigation that doesn’t involve anybody in the building and so I’d refer you to the parties that it does," she said at the daily press briefing.
Reached by telephone, Spicer confirmed he had a “ten-minute” meeting with Butowsky and Wheeler in White House on April 20.
“As I said, Ed has been a longtime supporter of President Trump,” Spicer told NBC News. “They came in and told me about the story they were working on for Fox.”
Spicer also confirmed what he told NPR, which broke the Wheeler lawsuit story.
“There was no talk about the president’s agenda,” he said. “They were just informing me about the story.”
Huckabee Sanders saw no issue with Spicer taking the meeting. "It doesn't bother me that the press secretary would take a meeting with someone involved in the media about a story."
Wheeler in the lawsuit produced a May 14 text from Butowsky in which he said “the president just read the article.”
“He wants the article out immediately,” he allegedly wrote.
Spicer said he did not know if Butowsky had any direct contact with the president.
DNC spokeswoman Xochitl Hinojosa also weighed-in on the Wheeler lawsuit.
“If these allegations are true, it is beyond vile that the White House — and possibly even Trump himself — would use the murder of a young man to distract the public’s attention from their chaotic administration and Trump’s ties to Russia," she said."
http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/set ... mp-n78854133
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