Family of murdered DNC staffer says there are 'no facts' behind reports tying him to WikiLeaks
Following The Washington Post's bombshell report Monday night that President Trump went "off script" and revealed classified intelligence information to Russians last week, right-wing websites like Fox News, Drudge Report, Gateway Pundit, and Breitbart have all buried the news and focused instead on reports that murdered Democratic National Committee staffer Seth Rich had allegedly leaked "thousands" of internal emails to WikiLeaks.
Except Rich likely did no such thing, his family said Tuesday. "As we've seen through the past year of unsubstantiated claims, we see no facts, we have seen no evidence, we have been approached with no emails and only learned about this when contacted by the press," the family's spokesperson, Brad Bauman, told BuzzFeed News.
Fox News' report cited "a federal investigator who reviewed an FBI forensic report ... detailing the contents of Rich's computer" who claimed "[Rich] made contact with WikiLeaks through Gavin MacFadyen, a now-deceased American investigative reporter, documentary filmmaker, and director of WikiLeaks who was living in London at the time." WikiLeaks has offered $20,000 for information about Rich's murder.
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The New York Times reports that Rich's "killing fueled speculation on the internet that he was somehow tied to the hacked [DNC] emails, but the police have not given any credence to that speculation." D.C. police believe Rich was killed in an attempted robbery.
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Jeva Lange was the executive editor at TheWeek.com. She formerly served as The Week's deputy editor and culture critic. She is also a contributor to Screen Slate, and her writing has appeared in The New York Daily News, The Awl, Vice, and Gothamist, among other publications. Jeva lives in New York City. Follow her on Twitter.
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