Fox News and Wikileaks owe apology for debunked Seth Rich conspiracy theory

[Mormolyce]

WikiLeaks and Fox News Are Silent on the Debunked Seth Rich Conspiracy Theory
Mueller confirmed the DNC staffer didn’t steal his own party’s emails. Why won’t Sean Hannity or Julian Assange apologize for spreading misinformation?

Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s redacted final report drove a dagger through the heart of one of the most notorious conspiracy theories of the Trump era: that a murdered DNC staffer named Seth Rich — not Russia — stole tens of thousands of Democratic Party emails and gave them to WikiLeaks during the 2016 presidential race.

But don’t hold your breath for an apology, correction or retraction from high-profile promoters of the now-disproven theories like Sean Hannity or WikiLeaks. In the aftermath of Mueller’s report, they’ve gone silent on the subject of Seth Rich.

The baseless theories about Rich first appeared online within 24 hours of his killing on July 10th, 2016. But it wasn’t until a month later that those theories spread like wildfire after WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange suggested on Dutch TV that Rich was the source for a trove of leaked Democratic Party emails WikiLeaks had begun publishing on its website. The emails proved embarrassing enough to prompt the resignations of multiple top DNC officials including chairwoman Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL).

The theories about Rich’s life and murder — which remains unsolved — continued through Election Day and well into Trump’s presidency, fueled by more comments from Assange and breathless hyping by Fox News and its star anchor, Sean Hannity. In May 2017, the network’s website published a story reporting that Rich had “contact with WikiLeaks,” only to retract the story entirely a week later.

But in the time between publication and retraction, Hannity promoted the story almost nightly on his show. He ran footage of Assange’s interview hinting at Rich’s involvement. He questioned the official police account of what had happened to Rich (a robbery gone wrong). He argued the Rich theory could disprove any coordination between Russia and the Trump campaign. “Now, if Rich in fact was WikiLeaks’ source for the DNC email leaks, it would confirm Russia was not involved,” Hannity said on his May 18th, 2017, show. “Remember, WikiLeaks have not been wrong in 11 years. They’ve not been proven to get one fact wrong that they have published.” (After the retraction, Fox News’s president in charge of news said that the reporting process that went into the story was “being investigated internally,” but Fox has yet to say what came of that investigation.)

According to Mueller’s report, by far the most exhaustive investigation into the DNC hack, Rich had nothing to do with the hack-and-dump operation that illegally accessed the DNC’s networks and the personal email accounts of Clinton campaign employees, including chairman John Podesta. The report documents in meticulous detail how Russian intelligence service units 26165 and 74455 employed sophisticated malware technology and rented computers located all over the world (including in the U.S.) to extract huge amounts of stolen data, including opposition research, strategy memos and fundraising documents. They also used so-called spear-phishing techniques to steal tens of thousands of private emails from staffers for the Democratic Party and the Clinton campaign. The Russians initially created two phony online identities, DCLeaks and Guccifer 2.0, to disseminate their hacked materials before eventually — at WikiLeaks’ urging — giving them to Assange’s outfit.

Mueller’s office devotes an entire sub-section of its final report to what it calls Assange and WikiLeaks’ “dissembling” about the source of the stolen Democratic Party materials. Mueller notes that Assange and WikiLeaks made various statements about Rich after receiving the stolen documents, including offering a $20,000 reward for information leading to the conviction of his killer or killers and alluding to him in subsequent television interviews.”Beginning in the summer of 2016, Assange and WikiLeaks made a number of statements about Seth Rich, a former DNC staff member who was killed in July 2016,” Mueller wrote. “The statements about Rich implied falsely that he had been the source of the stolen DNC emails.”

“We appreciate that the facts included in the Mueller report confirm what we have said all along: Seth had nothing to do with taking DNC emails or WikiLeaks,” Joel and Mary Rich, Seth’s parents, said in a statement sent to Rolling Stone by their lawyer. “Hopefully this will put to bed the harmful conspiracy theories about our sons.”

“The special counsel has now provided hard facts that demonstrate this conspiracy is false,” Aaron Rich, Seth’s older brother, said in a statement after the release of the redacted Mueller report. “I hope that the people who pushed, fueled, spread, ran headlines, articles, interviews, talk and opinion shows or in any way used my family’s tragedy to advance their political agendas — despite our pleas that what they were saying was not based on any facts — will take responsibility for the unimaginable pain they have caused us.”

That hasn’t happened. Rolling Stone sent detailed questions to representatives for some of the most influential promoters of the Rich conspiracy theories — Fox News, Sean Hannity, WikiLeaks and Julian Assange. We asked whether they planned to correct, retract or apologize for past comments about Rich, the DNC hack and WikiLeaks after Mueller’s debunking. None of them responded to multiple requests for comment. (The request for Assange, who was arrested in London almost two weeks ago and faces one count of conspiracy in the U.S., was sent to his American lawyer.)

At this point, the only remedy that appears to be working for the Rich family is going to court. In March 2018, Aaron Rich sued a one-time Fox guest, a pro-Trump blogger and the right-leaning Washington Times newspaper for defamation after they accused him of helping his brother steal documents from the DNC and providing them to WikiLeaks in exchange for money that went to Aaron Rich’s bank account. Aaron Rich’s legal strategy has so far led to retractions and apologies from the Washington Times (which was then dropped from his suit) as well as pro-Trump conspiracy theorist Jerome Corsi and the website InfoWars. (Corsi had published a column at InfoWars that parroted the baseless claims about Seth and Aaron Rich.) Joel and Mary Rich, Seth’s parents, have also sued Fox News, a Fox guest and the author of the retracted story about Rich and WikiLeaks, alleging intentional infliction of emotional distress. A federal judge in New York dismissed the suit last fall; it is currently on appeal.

This March, a federal judge in Washington, D.C., gave the go-ahead for Aaron Rich’s suit to head to trial. “Aaron is gratified that the special counsel’s report lays to rest the lingering conspiracy theories regarding his brother’s murder,” his lawyer Mike Gottlieb said in a statement. “Aaron looks forward to pursuing accountability against those who have repeatedly lied about him and his brother to score political points.”

https://www.rollingstone.com/politic...theory-825686/

I mean anyone with a brain has known for ages that was a smokescreen, but the Mueller report has definitively established that it was a lie from day one.

Disgusting fucking behaviour. Especially from that shill Hannity.

[Seranthor]

I mean anyone with a brain has known for ages that was a smokescreen, but the Mueller report has definitively established that it was a lie from day one.

Disgusting fucking behaviour. Especially from that shill Hannity.

So I'm confused... are we supposed to believe the Mueller report or not? Or are we reduced to cherry pick parts we agree with and ignore the rest?

[infinit]

I must say mormolyce, for someone who is outspoken about russiagate you sure do love to stick your nose into the politics of other countries.
A LOT

australian propaganda farm?

[Orbitus]

I must say mormolyce, for someone who is outspoken about russiagate you sure do love to stick your nose into the politics of other countries.
A LOT

australian propaganda farm?

What Russiagate? There is plenty of evidence in the Mueller report for collusion. Don't worry though, they will probably have a Mueller report on tape soon.

[Nzx]

Oh Mormolyce. Don't you know that the report totally exonerates Trump from any wrongdoing but everything else that's in there is totally false and should be ignored? You know better than to expect the crazed alt-right basement dwellers on this website to actually possess spines and the ability to call out their "team" when they're in the wrong.

[exochaft]

So I'm confused... are we supposed to believe the Mueller report or not? Or are we reduced to cherry pick parts we agree with and ignore the rest?

Regardless of what the report said, this is pretty much how one would expect things to end up. Aside from the extreme details, the general narrative that was expressed in the report in terms of Trump's non-collusion and what actually conspired has been known for 2 years (although depending upon your news sources, you were either super shocked by the results of the report or did a shrug because it's been known for so long). Only thing new in the report are super specific details that don't change the overall events in the least, everything else was either out in the open or minor investigative reporting could've found out.

With respect to this story, I vaguely remember these events, however in full context they were likely offered with modifiers. Things like "if this source is true, then X and Y might have occurred" were used quite a bit, and they were usually paired with statements that offered condolences to the victim and his family and hope that they find out the truth (whatever it may be) and get justice for their kid (which this story leaves out). Which is probably why the lawsuit was denied in New York to begin with.

Even in the worst case scenario, this is nothing compared to the treatment of other individuals, including Trump, have underwent this entire time. There's tons and tons of news stories and articles almost exclusively using anonymous, non-verified sources that claimed up until the last minute they had evidence of Trump collusion, and there's no mention from said news sources nor is there any accountability. Wikileaks is an actual source, who may have potentially outright lied (or maybe Russia fed him doctored documents, who knows), but it's at least a non-anonymous source, which is more than can be said for most collusion news that went out. If you want to sue someone, you're best bet is to sue the source that lied, which is Wikileaks in this case.

[GrinnersGrin]

This is satire right?

[Vatrilian]

He interviewed Julian Assange who said that it was not Russia. The download speed of the information that was hacked could not have been done remotely. The DNC would not allow the FBI to look at its servers. So the only logical conclusions that can be derived are a Russian agent went into the facility where the servers were housed or a pissed off Bernie Sanders supporter who recognized that the primary was fixed for Hillary, as was revealed.

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How many fake news stories spawned out of this Hoax of the Russian investigation? Maybe when the entire MSM establishment apologizes.

[Evil Midnight Bomber]

So I'm confused... are we supposed to believe the Mueller report or not? Or are we reduced to cherry pick parts we agree with and ignore the rest?

It's Trump and Barr that want you to believe the cherry picked parts they agree with...and the parts they just made up regarding "total exoneration".

Everybody else just wants the full report. Not Barr's summary and not his color-coded redacted version. The full report.

[Vatrilian]

It's Trump and Barr that want you to believe the cherry picked parts they agree with...and the parts they just made up regarding "total exoneration".

Everybody else just wants the full report. Not Barr's summary and not his color-coded redacted version. The full report.

Very little was redacted and it confirmed what every sane person believed that Trump and his campaign did not collude with the Russian Government. The Attorney general of The United States determined there was no obstruction of justice as there was no underlying crime and you can't obstruct justice when wielding constitutional powers. After the Starr report against Bill Clinton Democrats remade the special council statute and thus legally he can not release the entire report with grand jury material.

[breslin]

https://medium.com/@markfmccarty/bil...n-54a2df5a0e5b


Why does the NSA have 32 pages of communications between Seth Rich and Julian Assange that's classified?

[Protean]

Very little was redacted and it confirmed what every sane person believed that Trump and his campaign did not collude with the Russian Government. The Attorney general of The United States determined there was no obstruction of justice as there was no underlying crime and you can't obstruct justice when wielding constitutional powers. After the Starr report against Bill Clinton Democrats remade the special council statute and thus legally he can not release the entire report with grand jury material.

You must have read a different report. The wording in the original says there's no sufficient evidence to say there was a collusion, and that it does not exonerate Trump.

Yes it specifically says the report isn't in any way proof he didn't do it.

[Vatrilian]

You must have read a different report. The wording in the original says there's no sufficient evidence to say there was a collusion, and that it does not exonerate Trump.

Yes it specifically says the report isn't in any way proof he didn't do it.

“The investigation did not identify evidence that any U.S. persons knowingly or intentionally coordinated with the IRA’s interference operation”

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“the investigation did not establish that members of the Trump campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities.”
Robert Mueller

[Evil Midnight Bomber]

Very little was redacted and it confirmed what every sane person believed that Trump and his campaign did not collude with the Russian Government.

It doesn't say that. It states there wasn't enough evidence to support a criminal conspiracy. It does state that there was evidence that the Trump Campaign made attempts to collude with Russia...it just didn't rise to to criminal levels.

There is a less-redacted version of the report coming that will be released to a limited number of Congress members.

The Attorney general of The United States determined there was no obstruction of justice as there was no underlying crime and you can't obstruct justice when wielding constitutional powers.

Barr very publicly held that opinion before he was even made the AG... wonder if that had anything to do with his appointment.

The Mueller report has a different interpretation:

“The conclusion that Congress may apply the obstruction laws to the president’s corrupt exercise of the powers of office accords with our constitutional system of checks and balances and the principle that no person is above the law,”

After the Starr report against Bill Clinton Democrats remade the special council statute and thus legally he can not release the entire report with grand jury material.

Justice Department regulations give the AG pretty wide authority to release special counsel reports when it is in the public interest.

Barr also went contrary to Starr's opinion that the President ( in Starr's case, Clinton) and his lawyers had no right to review the report before it was delivered to congress.

[ohwell]

Oh Mormolyce. Don't you know that the report totally exonerates Trump from any wrongdoing but everything else that's in there is totally false and should be ignored? You know better than to expect the crazed alt-right basement dwellers on this website to actually possess spines and the ability to call out their "team" when they're in the wrong.

God, just when I had thought the left was winning the crazy battle of who can be more insane in YouTube comments, I had someone sit and argue with me that the report said Trump was innocent. I was in a like 15 comment exchange explaining there is no proof of innocence in American law typically and there isn't in this case. He replies about 2 years and nothing was found as if that somehow validates his claim. I brought up about how it's hard for false rape accusations to get tried because you need to prove the alleged rapist was in fact innocent in that case rather than not guilty. Conversation keeps going until he thinks he has me in a gotcha saying "But Trump isn't guilty dipshit we don't use the term innocent in legal cases here".......to which I had to just end it as he then tried to use the original argument I used to somehow make it like he won.

I think one of the sons was involved and he had no idea, however. Wouldn't put it past them. Bannon was probably involved and told them not to tell dad, which would essentially exonerate him. However, Bernie has the right idea(although the wrong idea running again) in that impeachment at this point is stupid and simply beating him in 2020 would be their best bet.

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You must have read a different report. The wording in the original says there's no sufficient evidence to say there was a collusion, and that it does not exonerate Trump.

Yes it specifically says the report isn't in any way proof he didn't do it.

Very little in US law proves someone didn't do something. The burden is on proving they did do it and if you can somehow cast doubt, you win, but you're not declared innocent. I don't know why people are suddenly declaring anything here proof that he didn't do it. They just couldn't prove he did.

[Vatrilian]

It doesn't say that. It states there wasn't enough evidence to support a criminal conspiracy. It does state that there was evidence that the Trump Campaign made attempts to collude with Russia...it just didn't rise to to criminal levels.

There is a less-redacted version of the report coming that will be released to a limited number of Congress members.



Barr very publicly held that opinion before he was even made the AG... wonder if that had anything to do with his appointment.

The Mueller report has a different interpretation:

“The conclusion that Congress may apply the obstruction laws to the president’s corrupt exercise of the powers of office accords with our constitutional system of checks and balances and the principle that no person is above the law,”



Justice Department regulations give the AG pretty wide authority to release special counsel reports when it is in the public interest.

Barr also went contrary to Starr's opinion that the President ( in Starr's case, Clinton) and his lawyers had no right to review the report before it was delivered to congress.

You are Canadian so I understand how our system of government can be confusing. Principle Conclusions from the report:
“The investigation did not identify evidence that any U.S. persons knowingly or intentionally coordinated with the IRA’s interference operation”
“The investigation did not establish that members of the Trump campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities.”
-Robert Mueller
There is no evidence for collusion or conspiracy. NO EVIDENCE.
The Attorney General is the one who decides to prosecute in our system of Justice. A prosecutor is a binary position. You either prosecute or you don't, simple. Prosecutors do not exonerate, only juries or judges can. This case does not even rise to that as there is no evidence. Mueller did not decide on obstruction. Congress can impeach but that is a political act not criminal. Congress can impeach for anything. He can not release Grand Jury material that is against the law.

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In the United States it is not the job of the defendant to prove their innocence. And it is not the job of the prosecutor to exonerate. Very simple stuff.

[Chakah]

https://www.rollingstone.com/politic...theory-825686/

I mean anyone with a brain has known for ages that was a smokescreen, but the Mueller report has definitively established that it was a lie from day one.

Disgusting fucking behaviour. Especially from that shill Hannity.

Fox and Hannity are disgusting, but the Mueller report does NOT prove Seth Rich wasn't murdered for leaking emails to Wikileaks. The report specifically calls out they don't know how the data was actually transferred, only that Guccifer 2.0 was in contact with Wikileaks. I personally think Rich likely sent emails *and* the Russians hacked the DNC.

[Surfd]

Very little was redacted and it confirmed what every sane person believed that Trump and his campaign did not collude with the Russian Government. The Attorney general of The United States determined there was no obstruction of justice as there was no underlying crime and you can't obstruct justice when wielding constitutional powers.

Lol no. They were not able to prove "criminal conspiracy" due to the fact that criminal conspiracy requires a very high bar to pass, mainly because it requiring a certain level of coordination between the parties involved, and the Trump Campaign basically skated off the charge because of they were too stupid and inept to actually manage that level of coordination. I mean, it wasn't for lack of trying, as the report presents plenty of evidence of attempted transactions and shennanigans going on between the two parties. It's literally the equivalent of watching someone walk in a trial because the prosecution tried for a Murder charge, but the defendant was too inept to actually pull off the murder, and the prosecution is not allowed to go for Attempted Murder (of which the defendant is guilty as fuck).

And the Obstruction argument is even worse: Their literal argument is that obstruction is not obstruction if you actively attempt to obstruct but manage to fail at it. Which is pants on head straight up retarded. The only reason he failed to obstruct is because his underlings literally refused to do what he commanded them to do. Attempted Obstruction is still obstruction, weather you fail at it or not.

[Evil Midnight Bomber]

You are Canadian so I understand how our system of government can be confusing. Principle Conclusions from the report:
“The investigation did not identify evidence that any U.S. persons knowingly or intentionally coordinated with the IRA’s interference operation”
“The investigation did not establish that members of the Trump campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities.”
-Robert Mueller
There is no evidence for collusion or conspiracy. NO EVIDENCE.
The Attorney General is the one who decides to prosecute in our system of Justice. A prosecutor is a binary position. You either prosecute or you don't, simple. Prosecutors do not exonerate, only juries or judges can. This case does not even rise to that as there is no evidence. Mueller did not decide on obstruction. Congress can impeach but that is a political act not criminal. Congress can impeach for anything. He can not release Grand Jury material that is against the law.

You're a Trump supporter so I understand how facts can be confusing.

Mueller doesn't say anything at all about collusion...because Collusion is not a legally defined thing. He said there wasn't enough evidence to support a criminal conspiracy. Here's the full quote that you cherry-picked from

The investigation also identified numerous links between the Russian government and the Trump Campaign. Although the investigation established that the Russian government perceived it would benefit from a Trump presidency and worked to secure that outcome, and that the Campaign expected it would benefit electorally from information stolen and released through Russian efforts, the investigation did not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities.

Mueller did not say there was no evidence of obstruction. He outlines many cases where the President may have obstructed Justice...but, as it is Justice Department policy not to charge a sitting president with crimes, he doesn't recommend prosecution at this time.

[Mormolyce]

I'm going to confess that I'm honestly surprised there are still people stupid enough to believe the Seth Rich fraud. How dumb can someone be, seriously?

I must say mormolyce, for someone who is outspoken about russiagate you sure do love to stick your nose into the politics of other countries.
A LOT

australian propaganda farm?

To us this is like a particularly tawdry reality TV show. Car crash TV.

So I'm confused... are we supposed to believe the Mueller report or not?

I'm literally holding it up as proof that the Seth Rich lie was just that. But being confused is a speciality for some people, isn't it?

He interviewed Julian Assange who said that it was not Russia. The download speed of the information that was hacked could not have been done remotely. The DNC would not allow the FBI to look at its servers. So the only logical conclusions that can be derived are a Russian agent went into the facility where the servers were housed or a pissed off Bernie Sanders supporter who recognized that the primary was fixed for Hillary, as was revealed.

Julian Assange lied, the Mueller report proves it. He may very well face charges over that at some point.

Your talking points are about two years out of date, here:

Roughly a year ago you might recall that numerous outlets happily parroted claims that the DNC wasn't hacked by Russian intelligence (as latter reports would make clear), but had somehow actually hacked itself. The theory was never particularly well cooked, though outlets like The Nation ran with it anyway, claiming that "forensic investigators, intelligence analysts, system designers, program architects, and computer scientists of long experience and strongly credentialed" had all collectively unearthed undeniable evidence that the DNC had committed cyber-seppuku.

The widely-circulated report leaned heavily on a published memo by Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS), a collection of former intelligence experts and whistleblowers like William Binney and Ray McGovern. It also leaned heavily on the input of several, anonymous, self-professed "computer forensics investigators" who, the news outlet informed readers, had "split the DNC case open like a coconut," providing incontrovertible evidence that Russian intelligence played no role in the now-legendary breach.

But the entire claim was little more than fluff and nonsense.

As we noted at the time, The Nation story relied heavily on the allegation the stolen files must have been copied locally to USB by a DNC insider because, as The Nation claimed, "no Internet service provider was capable of downloading data at this speed" (22.7 megabytes per second). In reality, 22.7 megabytes per second was simply a 180 Mbps connection, widely available around the world at the time the DNC hack took place. That includes Romania, the country that the Russian cutout Guccifer 2.0 pretended (at the time) to have originated from.

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20...uk-troll.shtml

Bolded the funniest part. They literally bamboozled you by quoting bytes instead of bits. You can't make this shit up.

But you should really read the whole article, it's long but it goes into great detail on the trolls who spread this laughable nonsense. It's literally from r/conspiracy lel.

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And the Obstruction argument is even worse: Their literal argument is that obstruction is not obstruction if you actively attempt to obstruct but manage to fail at it. Which is pants on head straight up retarded. The only reason he failed to obstruct is because his underlings literally refused to do what he commanded them to do. Attempted Obstruction is still obstruction, weather you fail at it or not.

Basically, the Mueller report laid out the elements of obstruction that would be used in an obstruction of justice case but declined to recommend charges due to the DOJ's standing policy that the President can't be indicted. He instead pointed to two possible remedies: legal action once he leaves office... and impeachment.