Seth Rich's family suing Fox News over retracted story

Fox News headquarters.
(Image credit: Getty Images)

The family of Seth Rich, a Democratic National Committee staffer who was killed in 2016, has filed a lawsuit against Fox News, investigative reporter Malia Zimmerman, and commentator Ed Butowsky over a story Rich's family says contained "false and fabricated facts."

Rich was killed in Washington, D.C., in July 2016, and police told the Rich family it's possible robbery was a factor; his murder remains unsolved. At the time, the 27-year-old was a voter-expansion data director with the DNC. In a lawsuit obtained by ABC News, Rich's family says a Fox News article posted on May 16, 2017, contained incorrect information that sparked conspiracy theories falsely linking Rich's murder to WikiLeaks' release of 20,000 hacked DNC emails. Fox News retracted the story later that month.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up
Explore More
Catherine Garcia, The Week US

Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.