New Lawsuit Alleges Fox News Conspired With Trump to Manufacture Fake “Seth Rich” Conspiracy Story
A veteran Fox News contributor claims in a new lawsuit that the Trump White House and Fox News worked together to cook up the ugly “Seth Rich” conspiracy theory, to deflect attention away from the Trump gang’s ties to Russia.
This conspiracy theory (now accepted as gospel truth in much of the right wing, even though Fox News was forced to retract their original story) is that DNC staffer Seth Rich was murdered by mysterious forces to cover up his role in leaking the DNC emails that were published during the campaign by Wikileaks
The Fox contributor, Rod Wheeler, alleges that Fox News reporter Malia Zimmerman literally made up quotations and attributed them to him, and that wealthy Trump supporter Ed Butowsky boasted to Wheeler that Donald Trump himself had seen and approved drafts of the Fox story before it was aired.
On April 20, a month before the story ran, Butowsky and Wheeler — the investor and the investigator — met at the White House with then-press secretary Sean Spicer to brief him on what they were uncovering.
The first page of the lawsuit quotes a voicemail and text from Butowsky boasting that Trump himself had reviewed drafts of the Fox News story just before it went to air and was published.
Spicer now tells NPR that he took the meeting as a favor to Butowsky, a reliable Republican voice. Spicer says he was unaware of any contact involving the president. And Butowsky tells NPR that he was kidding about Trump’s involvement.
“Rod Wheeler unfortunately was used as a pawn by Ed Butowsky, Fox News and the Trump administration to try and steer away the attention that was being given about the Russian hacking of the DNC emails,” says Douglas Wigdor, Wheeler’s lawyer.
There we go again with the “kidding” excuse. The Trump gang sure does like to joke around about important matters. Must be a laff-a-minute in staff meetings.
This is really a stunning development, though; if true, it shows the Trump White House was directly involved in manufacturing fake news stories. It’s the bombshell news of the day; read the whole thing.
