A Death on W Street - Big Dig Energy

%%Insert article archive preview image below.%% ![https://archive.is/Lqnew/b00c9727acd0daf62dfbc383698505e067a5e204.jpg](https://archive.is/Lqnew/b00c9727acd0daf62dfbc383698505e067a5e204.jpg) # A Death on W Street: The Murder of Seth Rich and the Age of Conspiracy > ==**Publish Date:**== 09-06-2022 > ==**Author:**== [Andy Kroll](Andy%20Kroll.md) > ==**Publisher:**== PublicAffairs > ==**ISBN:**== 9781541751149, 1541751140 ## Summary > A true-crime story for the post-truth era > > In the early hours of July 10, 2016, gunshots rang out and a young man lay fatally wounded on a quiet Washington, DC, street. But who killed Seth Rich? When he was buried in his hometown, his rabbi declared: “There are no answers for a young man gunned down in the prime of his life.” The rabbi was wrong. There were in fact many answers, way too many. > > In the absence of an arrest, a howling mob filled the void. Wild speculation and fantastical theories surfaced on social media and gained traction thanks to a high-level cast of provocateurs. But it wasn’t until Fox News took the rumors from the fringes to the mainstream that Seth Rich’s life and death grew into something altogether unexpected—one of the foundational conspiracy theories of modern times. > > A Death on W Street unravels this gripping saga of murder, madness, and political chicanery, one that would ensnare Hillary Clinton and Steve Bannon, a popular pizzeria in northwest DC and the most powerful voices in American media. It's the story of an idealistic twenty-seven-year-old political staffer who became a tragic victim of the culture wars, until his family decided that they had no choice but to defend his name and put an end to the cruel deceptions that surrounded his death. > > This is the definitive story of Seth Rich, of those who tried to weaponize his memory in a war of words unlike any other, and of one family’s crusade to protect the truth against all odds. ## Full Text Note: These are notes for the book, but not the full text. ## Chapter 1 #1 When [Seth Rich](Seth%20Rich.md) heard those six words, he almost couldn’t believe them. It was early July 2016. Seth sat across from his boss, a lawyer named Pratt Wiley, in an office on the second floor of the Democratic National Committee headquarters. #2 Wiley, the DNC’s chief of staff, had grown fond of his young coworker. But by the summer of 2016, Seth was struggling. The previous six months had left the DNC’s employees exhausted and defeated. #3 Seth was the political junkie in the Rich family. He was unrivaled in his love for politics, and no one was sure where he got it from. His father, Joel, was a gentle bear of a man with springy curls and a sneaky sense of humor. His family ran a print shop that supplied menus and signs to restaurants, bars, and other small businesses. #4 When Seth was in the ninth grade, he wrote about his personality traits and goals for the future. He wanted to be famous. He had already done some modeling as a kid, and he had shown an interest in acting. #5 Seth was a natural politician. He got his first campaign job working as a field coordinator for US senator Ben Nelson’s 2006 reelection campaign. He was undeterred by the low salary, and continued to search for jobs in Washington, DC. #6 Washington was a place where young people could make a name for themselves and become politicians. It was a heady time for Seth, as he was surrounded by fellow nerds and political junkies. #7 Seth had always had a keen interest in voting rights and the fight to expand access to the ballot box. He had come so far from his days volunteering for the Young Democrats in high school or passing out business cards in college that described him as a Student with Political Ambition. #8 On June 10, 2016, the staff of the Democratic National Committee gathered in a conference room to receive an email about an all-hands meeting. They were told to hand over their laptops as part of a system-wide update. #9 On June 13, the British network ITV teased an upcoming interview with [Julian Assange](Index%20📚/Person/Julian%20Assange.md), leader of the radical transparency group [WikiLeaks](Wikileaks.md). He had explosive new developments to share related to the US presidential race. #10 As Assange’s stature increased, so did his list of enemies and the scrutiny on WikiLeaks. A US congressman, Peter King, said he wanted Assange to be charged under the Espionage Act for releasing classified information, and WikiLeaks to be designated a terrorist organization. #11 In 2012, Assange sought asylum from Ecuador in the Ecuadorian embassy in London. He had been accused of rape and sexual molestation in Sweden, and he feared that if he returned there, he would be extradited to the United States. #12 On June 12, Assange told ITV’s Robert Peston that WikiLeaks had accumulated a large cache of information about Clinton. The material was explosive, he added, and could be used to bring an indictment against her. He refused to say what the documents said or where he had gotten them. #13 James Perry, one of Seth’s college friends, visited him in Kansas City to help him get through the break-up with his girlfriend. When the friends said their goodbyes in Kansas City, Perry felt like Seth was in a somewhat better headspace than when he had arrived. #14 Seth had started working for the Clinton campaign. He had to decide what to do next. He had started writing his acceptance email: All my life I wanted to be in a position that I can make a difference, it began. The email sat unfinished. He had almost finished his last beer when he called his ex-girlfriend. #15 The Bloomingdale neighborhood near the US Capitol was a haven for Black Washingtonians, but it also became a crime-ridden zone as developers bought up properties and turned them into bars and restaurants. #16 The next day, July 11, the DNC released a statement on Seth’s passing. They urged anyone with information about the murder to contact the DC police. #17 The initial responses to the announcement of Seth’s death were kind and sympathetic. But soon, a different kind of reaction began to appear. Unfamiliar [Twitter](Twitter.md) accounts began to speculate about whether Seth’s murder had anything to do with his job. #18 The first wave of speculation about Seth’s murder originated on the far-left end of the political spectrum. Many supporters of Bernie Sanders were primed to suspect the worst about the DNC. They believed the national party had rigged the primary to ensure that Clinton, the chosen candidate of the corporate class, won the nomination. #19 In real life, kurtchella was Kurt Ramos, a college freshman and Bernie Sanders supporter who lived in central Florida. He had nurtured a contrarian streak since he was young. He felt drawn to outsiders, perhaps because he felt a bit like one himself. #20 The funeral took place at Beth El Synagogue in Omaha. Friends and family members placed a small amount of earth on top of Seth’s casket. In [Judaism](Judaism.md), this is a final act of honor for the dead, a favor that can never be repaid. #21 As Clinton spoke, one of Rich’s coworkers felt uneasy. He remembered all the people out there who hated [Hillary Clinton](Hillary%20Clinton.md) and obsessively searched for her hidden motives. #22 The origins of the Clinton Body-Count list are unclear, but it was typically sent around as an email or newsletter. It claimed to be a list of nearly sixty people who had recently died in suspicious circumstances, and who seemed to have a connection to the Clintons. #23 Americans have indulged in wild speculation and paranoid fantasies about their leaders and countrymen since the country’s inception. The radical Samuel Adams used this to help mobilize support for the American Revolution, stoking fears of a British conspiracy to enslave the colonists. #24 After the First World War and the explosive growth of the federal bureaucracy in the twentieth century, conspiracy theories began to turn inward, with Americans suspecting their own government of being behind these tragedies, scandals, or cataclysms. #25 The September 11 attacks were the most-watched event in human history, and yet people still believe in conspiracy theories. The usual answer to this is that the human mind seeks comfort in the face of uncertainty, but that isn’t the full picture. #26 The release of Loose Change in the mid-2000s marked the beginning of a golden age of conspiracy theorizing. It was followed by a new generation of conspiracy theorists who had access to communication tools their predecessors could only have dreamed of. #27 Jones was a local radio host in Austin, Texas, who was known for his in-your-face style and controversial statements. He parlayed a weekend hosting gig at a local radio station into his own talk radio show just as the medium was taking off. #28 Jones grew his audience and became extremely wealthy off of it. Despite pressure from various advocacy groups and victims of his conspiracy theories, his audience grew. Few elected officials would appear on his show, fearing being associated with his deranged views. #29 Trump’s presidential campaign in 2016 would exemplify the difference between a grassroots conspiracy theory and a mainstream one. The mainstream ones are used to explain the world, while the grassroots ones are blunt-force instruments that dehumanize their enemies. #30 The family’s grief was compounded by the media attention on the case. They held a press conference to plead with anyone with information to come forward. #31 The online conspiracy theories continued to spread. One strange website, WhatDoesItMean. com, which claimed to be run by an order of nuns but was actually the work of a retired chemical plant control room operator and prolific conspiracy theorist, claimed that Seth had been on his way to testify to the [FBI](FBI.md) about Hillary Clinton's corruption when he was killed. #32 Anchor Eelco van Rosenthal had dealt with Julian Assange before, when WikiLeaks released the DNC Leaks, an archive of nearly twenty thousand internal emails from the Democratic National Committee. #33 In an interview, Assange dropped what appeared to be small clues about the source of the emails. He claimed the DNC had been hacked dozens of times, but gave no evidence to support this claim. He remarked that it was up to the sources themselves to reveal their identities and their role. #34 The theories about Seth's involvement in the DNC leak were being passed around on social media. Some claimed he had been murdered for exposing corruption at the DNC, possibly at the behest of the Clinton family. #35 On social media, Trump’s followers began pushing the theory that Rich was the source of the leaked emails. This theory was spread by conservative influencers with much larger followings than those who originally tweeted the theory. #36 The theory that Seth was murdered because he was Assange’s source quickly went viral, and was picked up by [Fox News](Fox%20News.md). It was used against Hillary Clinton. #37 The supposed motive for the crime was that Seth was a Sanders supporter who wanted to expose Clinton’s corruption. But his parents believed that Seth’s patriotism meant he would have shared those concerns through the appropriate channels. #38 Burkman was a lobbyist who had taken an interest in the case. He announced a $100,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of the killer. He insisted that he wasn’t there to expound on any sort of conspiratorial theory about Seth Rich or how he died. #39 Burkman represented a variety of non-traditional clients. He was a mediocre lobbyist, but he got attention anyway. He understood how the media operated in the age of endless news and endless internet readers. #40 Burkman was eventually hired by the family to help with their search for the killer, but they insisted on waiting until after the election to hold a press conference. #41 As the months passed with no clues in the murder case, Aaron began to feel like he was living two lives. There was his normal day-to-day life, where he went to work as an engineer at defense contractor Northrop Grumman, and then there was the online life, where he would spend hours scouring social media sites for any new information about his brother’s murder. #42 On October 7, the [Department of Homeland Security](Department%20of%20Homeland%20Security.md) and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence released a statement that stated the American intelligence community was confident that Russia had orchestrated the recent compromises of emails from US persons and institutions, including from political organizations. #43 The media scoured [John Podesta](John%20Podesta.md)’s emails, which were stolen from Hillary Clinton’s campaign manager, and posted excerpts that made news. This was done to feed into preexisting criticisms of Clinton, who was seen as secretive, hypocritical, and corrupt. #44 Trump’s supporters on the subreddit r/The_Donald called him God Emperor and themselves Deplorables, a nod to Hillary Clinton’s description of Trump supporters as a basket of deplorables. They flooded online polls using the tactic of brigading to make it look like Trump had won the debate. #45 The_Donald, a [Reddit](Reddit.md) forum devoted to Trump, was the first to claim Seth was a martyr. They posted im- ages of him dressed in stripes, as well as selfies with captions such as Seth Rich is an American hero. #46 The disturbing theory that would later be dubbed Pizzagate took hold in some of the same places that the Seth Rich conspiracy theories had circulated in: r/The_Donald, 4chan’s /pol/, and alt-right influencers on Twitter. #47 On October 29, 2016, a [Facebook](Facebook.md) user named Carmen Katz posted a fifty-four-word post that alleged that the FBI had reopened its investigation of Hillary Clinton’s email server after discovering data on a laptop that belonged to [Anthony Weiner](Anthony%20Weiner.md), the former congressman who was married to Clinton’s aide Huma Abedin. The post was shared on Facebook and Twitter. #48 Pizzagate was the most devastating and tragic example of the new style of conspiracy theory. It did not simply accuse its targets of secret dealings, but also painted them as sadistic predators guilty of the worst crimes imaginable. #49 The threats against Comet increased, and Alefantis needed a lawyer. He found himself talking with a part- ner at a big Washington law firm, who told him that he probably had a defamation case, but that the firm specialized in defending clients in such cases not bringing them. Gottlieb was recommended to him. #50 Gottlieb, who was a lawyer with the [Democratic Party](Democratic%20Party.md), was part of a legal team that helped stop voter sup- pression efforts in several states. He encountered a parallel universe of information and news, which was generated by far-right online personalities like Mike Cernovich. #51 The conservative lawyers Gottlieb knew believed that some voter fraud did occur, but not on a large scale, and certainly not changing election outcomes. But the people posted at the New Hampshire border believed a massive crime was about to take place, and they had their cameras ready to document the busloads of illegal voters streaming into their state. #52 The lawsuits against Stone and the Trump campaign went nowhere. The courts didn’t believe there was enough evidence of intimidation to support the claims. #53 Gottlieb spent the election night in New York with his wife. They couldn’t believe what they were seeing. #54 Gottlieb was busy taking notes on all the Pizzagate videos he could find, as they began to play a mind games with him. He began to feel like he was becoming addicted to them. #55 One of the employees at Comet, a pizza restaurant owned by James Alefantis, was about to retrieve some frozen pizza dough from a freezer in the alley behind the restaurant when he heard three loud bangs. He went back into the restaurant and saw Welch, his AR-15 pointed at him. #56 The US Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia had jurisdiction over both federal and local crimes. It was a place where ambitious litigators on their way to bigger things would go to work. Deborah Sines had worked in the office for nearly two decades, taking some of the toughest cases involving the grisliest crimes. #57 Sines was eventually assigned to the Rich case, and she would end up prosecuting some of the most noto- rious killers in the District of Columbia’s history. She had never before been threatened with death like this. #58 Sines was also assigned a security detail of US Marshals to guard her around the clock. Her elderly mother and Josh got their own details. Sines normally rode the subway to work, but now plain-clothed agents drove her in an armored black truck with thick windows she couldn’t lower. #59 The search for Levy’s killer captivated the country. The decedent’s name was Seth Conrad Rich. His autopsy report described two gunshot wounds to the lower torso, which caused internal bleeding and damage to his vital organs. There were no shell casings at the crime scene, which made it more likely the murder weapon was a revolver. #60 Sines knew that the case would be difficult. The evidence was scant, and she had dealt with the local crim- inal networks for long enough to know that turning a witness meant puncturing the code of silence de- manded by the local networks. #61 The Riches were shocked to learn that a stranger, Jack Burkman, had offered them $100,000 more in re- ward money. They held a press conference to announce the new information. #62 Joel and Mary Rich had many encounters with generous strangers who gave them advice and help, think- ing that they would help with the investigation. But none of it helped. #63 Butowsky kept pestering the Riches, and eventually proposed hiring a private investigator to reexamine the details of Seth’s murder. The family agreed, and hired George Burkman. #64 Burkman had continued to pursue the reward, and the billboards, without the Riches’ consent. They cut ties with him. #65 Butowsky played up the PI’s credentials, saying that he was a former homicide investigator for the DC po- lice and now worked as an on-air law enforcement expert for Fox News. The Riches didn’t yet agree to accept Butowsky’s help, but Joel replied that he and Mary and Aaron were appreciative. ## Chapter 2 #1 Butowsky grew up in Chappaqua, an affluent suburb of New York City. He spent two decades at Morgan Stanley, and in 2005, he and a colleague started their own firm, Chapwood Investments. They operated out of a modest office on the seventh floor of a glass office tower north of Dallas. #2 Fox attracted a certain type of overexcited, publicity-hungry creature like Ed Butowsky. Guests were not vetted in any clear manner, and Butowsky just seemed to want the exposure. He would post photos on Face- book of him with Republican politicians. #3 Butowsky became fixated on the 2012 attack on the American diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya, which left four Americans dead, including Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens. He spent more than $100,000 of his own money and two years of his life investigating what he believed to be the truth about Benghazi. #4 Butowsky and a Fox News green-room attendant, Ellen Ratner, became friends. Butowsky helped Ratner find investors for her media company, and when Ratner met with Ratner’s brother, a prominent civil liber- ties lawyer who had represented WikiLeaks, he learned that Assange had told her that the source of the DNC leak was not Russia, but an internal source or an enemy of the Clintons. #5 Butowsky reached out to a friend who had called allegations of Russian hacking in 2016 a joke, and who had suggested Hersh, a veteran journalist. #6 The Alefantis team began planning how to debunk Pizzagate. They wanted to do it in front of the audience most likely to believe the theory: Fox News. #7 The interview went well, and afterward, when Gottlieb went online to see what the Pizzagate believers were saying, he was surprised to see how little of an impact the segment had made. #8 Gottlieb and his team began to file takedown requests with [YouTube](YouTube.md), Facebook, and Twitter to have the defamatory content removed. It was a tedious process, and the team was small, so it took a lot of time to do. #9 Gottlieb understood that a legal strategy for dealing with the Pizzagate conspiracy theory needed to include Alex Jones and his Infowars show. He sent a letter to Jones asking for a full retraction and an apology, and when Jones did not comply, Gottlieb sent him a cease-and-desist letter. #10 Wheeler was a food safety consultant by day, but he’d spent the past decade working on Fox News. He’d met many of the network’s on-air talent, and was asked to help with the Seth Rich investigation. #11 Dr. Dennis Zimmerman, Malia’s father, was a clinical psychologist and college professor who worked with a nearby state hospital and prison. He served on a panel of experts that decided whether to send criminals to prison or a mental health institution. He liked to give his daughter logic puzzles and IQ tests. #12 Fox News was built around a certain sensibility that was focused on hitting you in the gut with stories that were us-against-them, good versus evil. This mentality transferred to the website’s staff, who were young edi- tors who spent their time rewriting wire-service reports to fit their sensibility. #13 Fox News contributor Malia Zimmerman wrote a number of stories that were sure to anger readers, from allegations of voter fraud in liberal California to gun crackdowns in Chicago. She also wrote about Seth Rich, a DNC staffer who was murdered in Washington, D. C. #14 On Mar. 14, 2017, the Riches finally agreed to hire Wheeler. The final agreement noted that Butowsky would pay for Wheeler's services and forbid Wheeler from discussing his investigation with third parties without the family's permission. #15 Burkman had recently gone public with the allegation that Seth had discovered the Russian hacking cam- paign targeting the Democratic National Committee, and so the Russians had him killed. He claimed his source for this claim was a former US intelligence officer who had served as a contractor in Iraq in the 1970s. #16 Burkman announced the Profiling Project, a private investigative effort that would focus on the murder of Seth Rich. The name was a nod to the Innocence Project, which has exonerated hundreds of felons through DNA analysis since two New York lawyers founded it in 1992. #17 Sines looked into the robbery stats in Seth’s neighborhood that summer, and saw a spike in armed rob- beries. She believed that the same two guys were probably behind most of them. #18 Sines’s theory was that Seth was killed during an armed robbery. She had no evidence that connected the two arrested men to Seth’s murder, though, and she didn’t have a good reason to interview them before their sentencing. #19 When Wheeler tried to canvass the area around the shooting, Butowsky told him he was wasting time and that he wasn’t going to use him if he didn’t do what Butowsky told him to do. #20 Butowsky and Zimmerman’s investigation focused on the fact that the police had no involvement with the case whatsoever, and that the detective investigating the case believed it was a robbery gone wrong. #21 Zimmerman had written a draft of a story that named Seth as the source of the WikiLeaks Democratic email dump. The implications of such a story were staggering. It would reveal an even vaster conspiracy, and implicate anyone in power who had blamed Russia for the attack at the DNC. #22 Between December 2016 and June 2017, 571 phone calls and 480 text messages were exchanged between Butowsky and Wheeler. Butowsky acted like a team lead. #23 Butowsky was still trying to get the story published, and he knew another source who could help him: Kash Patel, an investigator on the Intelligence Committee and an aide to Chairman Nunes. #24 The next day, Butowsky and Zimmerman called Wheeler with exciting news: they had found a source at the FBI who supposedly confirmed that Seth had communicated with WikiLeaks. However, the source could not be named. Wheeler was pressured to confirm the report. #25 Fox published the story the following morning, May 16. Its impact was massive. In the early morning hours of May 16, Butowsky alerted producers and hosts at Fox News to Zimmerman's story and emphasized the biggest takeaway: If you have any questions about the story or more information needed, call me. I'm actually the one who's been putting this together but as you know, I keep my name out of things because I have no credibility. #26 The following morning, Brad Bauman, the Rich family’s spokesman, woke up to find his face on the front page of Fox News. His source: an on-the-record source: Rod Wheeler. #27 The story broke through in a way it never had before, thanks in large part to the power of Fox News. #28 When Fox ran a story about Seth Rich, the impact was immediate. The story was spread by online propa- ganda, and it eventually made its way to Sean Hannity, who tweeted about it dozens of times to his 2. 5 mil- lion followers. #29 Mary had to go into work interview after interview, completely unaware that the Fox News story had al- ready spread. She was mortified when a rep from her company asked if she knew about Seth’s involvement in the scandal, and she had to inform him that her son did not do it. #30 The family’s statement disputed the allegations, and said they had been approached with no emails. They did not reveal the terms of Wheeler’s contract with the Riches. #31 The story had landed with such impact that a reporter from CNN asked press secretary Sean Spicer for his and the president’s reaction at the daily press briefing. Although Spicer had met with Butowsky and Wheeler a month earlier, he said he knew nothing about the case. #32 Fox News showed footage of an earlier interview they’d done with Julian Assange, in which the WikiLeaks founder reiterated that Russia hadn’t given him the stolen DNC emails. They then interviewed two prom- inent advisers to President Trump, lawyer Jay Sekulow and political operative Dave Bossie. #33 On May 18, Joel Rich, the brother of Seth Rich, sent a email to Fox News demanding a retraction. Fox re- sponded by saying that much of their information came from private investigator Rod Wheeler, who was working on behalf of the Rich family. #34 As Fox was dealing with the issue that Zimmerman’s story was wrong, Sean Hannity became its loudest champion. He continued to tweet about Seth and WikiLeaks: Julian Assange all but identifies the 27-year-old DNC worker as a source and we are to ignore this. he tweeted. The replies to Hannity’s tweets piled up: Which one of Seth Rich’s parents are conspiring with the ‘Deep State’. #35 Hannity continued to promote the theory that Seth was the source of the stolen emails, even after the fam- ily sent a cease-and-desist letter. #36 It was Aaron’s responsibility to take care of Seth’s belongings, including his laptop and phone. He noticed strange activity involving Seth’s phone number and his Gmail account. He saw messages that suggested peo- ple were trying to reset passwords for Seth’s social media accounts. #37 The more technologically sophisticated fanatics now knew Seth’s email address and Twitter account, and could use that information to track down his phone number or break into his devices. #38 Mary, after losing her son, felt like her grief couldn't get any worse. But Sean Hannity amplified the lies and made her feel scared beyond anything she had ever experienced. #39 Kim Dotcom, a hacker and internet entrepreneur, claimed he knew Seth Rich. He said he was the Wik- ileaks source. Fox continued to push the story, but it was falling apart. Then, Dotcom’s tweet gave it new life. #40 Mike Gottlieb, a lawyer who had encountered the Seth Rich-related conspiracy theories during his re- search for the voter suppression lawsuits he had filed in 2016, was now helping the Rich family. #41 The family decided to tackle the issue head on, with an op-ed in the [Washington Post](Washington%20Post.md). They described the pain and anguish they had been going through since July 2016, with every new headline about Seth’s death and a new lie. #42 Fox News retracts the story, saying it wasn’t subjected to the high degree of editorial scrutiny they require for all their reporting. #43 Hannity sent an email to Rich’s family stating, I care a lot about decency and truth. I also believe I can help you and your family. I will always be available if you want to talk. #44 The Profiling Project, led by Burkman, concluded that the shooting was most likely committed by a hired killer or serial murderer. They provided no evidence for their claim, however, and it was revealed that they had no access to any police records. #45 A group of demonstrators gathered in a small park on Capitol Hill on the anniversary of Seth’s murder, and marched to DNC headquarters. They claimed they were not racists or conspiracy theorists, but coinci- dence theorists. They asked for justice for Seth. #46 Joel and Mary tried to have a peaceful holiday on the anniversary, but it was difficult with the vigils and the tweets. They had issued a statement through Bauman that took aim at the partisan operatives seeking to exploit their tragedy. #47 Mary’s grief was so overwhelming that she took screenshots of every hateful comment about her family. She wanted proof in case the tweets or blog posts were taken down. #48 The Seth Rich conspiracy theorists seized on the report, which claimed that the emails were copied onto a USB thumb drive. This was supposedly impossible if the emails were downloaded remotely, according to the theorists, who believed that the report validated their claims. #49 TheWheelerLawsuit. pdf, filed by Rod Wheeler against Fox News, Ed Butowsky, and Malia Zimmerman, contained many revelations about the Seth Rich case. It turned out that Butowsky, Zimmerman, and Wheel- er had worked together to defame Seth for months behind the family’s back. #50 The Binneys sued Fox News, but their case was not clear-cut. They could not seek relief on Seth’s behalf, as it was long-established US law that when someone dies, their claim dies with them. #51 Binney, after being invited to meet with the [CIA](CIA.md) director, explained his theory to Pompeo and two CIA analysts. He never heard back from the CIA. #52 The lack of evidence and eyewitnesses, as well as the time that had passed since the crime, made the case extremely difficult for Sines. She knew that the more she spent on the case, the more she’d be infringing on the online noise surrounding it and the more she’d be exposed to conspiracy theories. #53 Sines had to follow orders and confirm that the accusation against Steve Wasserman was bogus. He had moved to a different section a few years earlier focused on organized crime, narcotics, and racketeering cases. She wrote a memo for her case file about the Wasserman theories. #54 Conspiracy theorists claimed that the few connections between Sava and the Clintons were enough evi- dence of a smoking gun. They claimed that Sava had facilitated Seth’s murder or even killed him himself. ## Chapter 3 #1 In the summer of 2018, a man named Matthew Wright drove a Brink’s-style truck across a bridge in Ari- zona, protesting Trump’s lack of progress on the so-called cabal. Wright was eventually arrested and charged with multiple offenses, including terrorist acts and unlawful flight from law enforcement. #2 The Wright case was a mystery to most people, even those who were following the online community that had developed around it. They believed that Democratic politicians, Hollywood celebrities, and wealthy lib- erals ran a secret criminal cult of Satan-worshipping pedophiles that trafficked young children and extracted their adrenal glands. #3 The first drop in the Storm was a cryptic message that appeared on 4chan in 2017. It hinted at a secret war against a criminal cabal, and named Trump as the hero. Trump was the hero of this new mythology, but there was another person who played a crucial role: an anonymous source called Q. #4 Something about the post caught people’s attention. It was the way Q relayed these cryptic details with such certainty. The prophecies of Q didn’t really catch on until a little-known YouTuber named Tracy Diaz started posting about them. #5 Diaz posted several videos a week about Hillary Clinton’s supposed failing health, election fraud, and the latest WikiLeaks revelations. She pored over Q’s messages, searching for breadcrumbs that would lead the way to a deeper understanding about what was really going on in her country. #6 The audience for QAnon-related commentary was not surprising, as it sounded a lot like Pizzagate, which tapped into a natural interest. The predictions about mass arrests and classified reports were so vague, they were virtually impossible to disprove, which made them that much more enticing to those who wanted to be- lieve them. #7 Operation Justice: We the People - a march for transparency - was a march held in Washington, DC, on April 7, 2018, demanding the release of a secret Office of the Inspector General report that would reveal Hillary Clinton’s many crimes. The crowd chanted: We want justice. #8 The far-right website Big League Politics began posting stories about Aaron Rich, claiming he had a Top Secret security clearance and that he worked for a major defense contractor that provided cybersecurity ser- vices to the US government. #9 The more extreme Couch’s accusations were, the more people would listen to him and the more money he could make. His followers responded to his videos and tweets with their own demands and claims. #10 Matt Couch, a conservative radio host, began tweeting about the Seth Rich case after Fox News retractedd the story in May 2017. He insisted that President Trump was innocent, and that the Russian interference story was a ploy by the left to take down Trump. #11 Many people shared and liked the Seth Rich-related content produced by Matt Couch, a Trump supporter from Arkansas. He quickly became a go-to voice in the pro-Trump online community for all things related to Seth Rich. #12 One of Couch’s first investigations was the death of Seth Rich, which led him to create a new company and investigate the `#SethRichCoverUp.` He began tweeting about Rich and asking for donations to fund the Investigations of the unsolved murder of DNC Staffer Seth Rich. #13 The family asked us to keep Rich out of the narrative, so we did. We didn’t want to hurt them, and we wanted to keep him out of it because they asked us to keep him out of it. #14 Butowsky was a key source for Couch, as he provided the information behind his claims. Butowsky hosted a group of people at his house outside of Dallas, who discussed the fallout from Zimmerman’s retracted Seth Rich story and what to do next. Butowsky blamed Rupert Murdoch’s sons for Fox’s decision to retract the story. #15 The witness, who had worked for the CIA for a decade, was now a veterinary technician. The post claimed that she had a role in the death of Shawn Lucas, a process server who had starred in a viral 2016 video accus- ing the DNC of fraud. #16 The conspiracy theories had expanded to include death threats, and Aaron found himself having to defend his brother’s memory and legacy constantly. #17 Gottlieb and his colleague Meryl Governski, an associate at the firm, gathered all the evidence they could find that might prove useful in a defamation lawsuit against Couch and Butowsky. They had hired a digital forensics firm to gather and preserve every available tweet, blog post, livestream video, and meme created by Couch and Butowsky. #18 The biggest question looming over the case was what degree of protection the law provided for Butowsky and Couch. If courts treated Couch and Butowsky as journalists, then the case would be that much harder to prove. #19 Sines brought Mueller into the jury room, where a debate about whether or not cats or dogs wake you up at 4:19 in the morning ensued. Sines had what she needed. #20 Sines was able to figure out that a member of Couch’s team, who went by the Twitter name Thin Blue LR, was actually a Reagan conservative, a cop, and an LEO. He had also tweeted about a witness: a description of two suspects, their clothing and race, who were seen fleeing the area after Seth was murdered. #21 It was a podcast appearance by Blue that gave the most clues to his identity. He was more vitriolic than usual, and when the subject of the midterm elections came up, he was adamant that Republicans had to show up and vote en masse if they wanted to defend Trump and beat back the Democratic Party. #22 Berlin, who was a conservative, couldn’t believe that Seth’s murder was related to a robbery. He believed it had to be a political hit ordered by Democratic Party leaders or someone powerful in politics. #23 After Sines found out that a neighbor had seen two black men running from the scene of the crime, she reported this to Couch, who in turn reported it to the police. Berlin, a working DC cop, had made many incendiary and downright offensive statements on Twitter. #24 On March 13, 2018, a new case was filed in the Southern District of New York against Fox News, Ed Bu- towsky, and Malia Zimmerman. The case alleged intentional infliction of emotional distress and argued that the actions of Butowsky and Zimmerman were so outrageous in character and degree that they went beyond all possible bounds of decency. #25 Burkman needed to come up with new ideas. His reenactment of Seth’s final hours was panned in the press, and his lawsuit on behalf of a Bernie Sanders supporter to gain access to the DNC’s servers went nowhere in the court. #26 On March 13, the same day Mary and Joel’s lawyers filed their lawsuit, Burkman left his house in Arling- ton and walked to the Marriott. His informant had emailed him earlier that day with instructions on how to retrieve the newest batch of documents. He felt a sharp pain in his buttocks when he reached the garage. #27 The police arrested Doherty, and he was found with several guns and ammunition in his house, as well as the rifle that was used in the shooting. No one could explain why he had done it. #28 Sines walked out of DC Superior Court on March 9, 2018, after a weeklong trial. She had been leading the Rich homicide investigation, as well as several other high-profile cases. The exhaustion she had been feeling went deeper than just the Bellamy trial. #29 Sines had worked on the case for 18 months, and she had collected a stack of memos documenting all the theories and rumors she had debunked. She was confident that Mueller was investigating the Rich con- spiracy theories about the DNC hack, WikiLeaks, and the election. #30 The hearing began on June 20, 2018, in front of Judge George B. Daniels. The lawyers for the Riches con- sidered him a tough draw. He moved at a slow pace, and had more pending motions in civil cases before him than any other judge in the country. #31 Fox’s defense opened with an aggressive strategy. Their lead counsel, Joseph Terry, said that the lawsuit was a ruse. It was a defamation claim in disguise, he said, a ploy by the Riches to seek damages on behalf of their dead son. If the court agreed with this interpretation, nothing the Riches had put in their complaint would come close to meeting the exceedingly high bar for intentional infliction of emotional distress. #32 The attorneys for both sides took questions from the judge for another few hours before the hearing ended. Aaron’s luck didn’t get any better when the case was assigned to Judge Richard Leon of the District Court. He was known for moving slowly like Judge Daniels did in New York. #33 The US government also filed a motion to block Clevenger, Gottlieb, and Governski from representing Bu- towsky. The government argued that Clevenger had accumulated a lot of disciplinary issues in various courts, and that his recent behavior related to the Aaron case foreshadowed trouble ahead. #34 The lawsuit against Fox News and Ed Butowsky was thrown out. The judge stated that the statements were not wrong, and that the plaintiffs had willingly participated in a collective effort to publish a sensational claim about Seth Rich’s murder. #35 Butowsky said the lawsuits and the media attention surrounding them drove away clients and caused a third of his firm’s business to evaporate. He vowed to sue anyone who had done anything negative to him as a result of the lawsuit. #36 The first inkling that QAnon followers helped spread was when one of Trump's loyalists wore a T-shirt with a giant Q on it at a rally in Tampa. The rally also marked the national TV debut of a different slogan: We Are Q. #37 QAnon, a series of posts that claimed to reveal a vast criminal conspiracy led by the deep state, drew wide- spread support from Republican candidates in the lead-up to the 2018 midterms. #38 Butowsky had embarked on a legal blitz. In just a few months, he filed six lawsuits against nearly fifty defendants, accusing all of them of defamation. He sued [NPR](NPR.md), its CEO, several of its top editors, and its media reporter David Folkenflik. #39 The case was appealed to the Second Circuit. The judges there asked whether the Riches’ claims were re- ally defamation in disguise or whether they stood on their own as allegations of intentional infliction of emo- tional distress. #40 Sines was very reluctant to speak with me, but I wrote her a letter anyway and sent it to her house near Daytona Beach. A few weeks later, she emailed me. She was acerbic and funny, and she naturally became en- grossed in the stories she was telling. #41 On March 12, 2019, Gottlieb received a visit from his administrative assistant, who informed him that there was a visitor waiting for him in the lobby who had documents that he needed to pick up. It was a defamation lawsuit filed by Ed Butowsky against Gottlieb and all the other defendants. #42 Gottlieb was still upset about the Washington Times column, which had claimed that it was well known in the intelligence circles that Seth and his brother, Aaron, had downloaded the DNC emails and were paid by WikiLeaks. #43 As the case dragged on, Gottlieb began looking for experts who could testify on behalf of Aaron. He flew to the UK to meet with a British computer scientist named Duncan Campbell, who had written an article point- ing out the flaws in the VIPS theory that the DNC hack was an inside job. #44 The family’s lawyers asked the federal judge to allow the suit to proceed, arguing that the Rich family had mounted a compelling enough argument. #45 The identity of the federal investigator was a mystery that grew as the Rich lawsuits progressed. Wheeler handed over thousands of pages of documents, text messages, and other records in Aaron’s case. Neither Fox nor Zimmerman put forward a name or detail for the federal investigator, nor did they offer any evidence that the alleged FBI report about Seth’s computer existed other than what they had heard secondhand. #46 Gottlieb wanted to question Zimmerman about the aftermath of the internal investigation, whether the federal investigator had ever been identified within Fox, and whether evidence in the Aaron case could be used in the New York case. #47 Gottlieb met with Assange's lawyer, Caroline Robinson, in late 2019. He tried to persuade her to have her client answer a few questions about the case, but she declined. Gottlieb then asked if another representative of WikiLeaks might answer questions about Seth and Aaron, but Robinson said her client was Assange, not WikiLeaks. #48 Gottlieb felt that Robinson recognized the severity of what happened to the Riches, but she did not have any evidence to back up Assange’s implication that Seth was his source. #49 Kayleigh McEnany, a top spokeswoman for Trump’s reelection campaign, was asked at a rally in Las Vegas who Q was. All right, I will pass this along, she said. Q signs, hats, T-shirts, and even tattoos appeared at Trump rallies. The president retweeted well-known QAnon influencers. #50 By the summer of 2020, it looked like the next session of the US Congress would feature a Seth Rich con- spiracy theorist and QAnon supporter. Many states scrambled to change their voting systems in time for the election. #51 Trump’s plan for winning reelection was to sell the American people not on a vision for the future but on an alternate reality of the present. His team filed lawsuits in more than a dozen states, many of them battle- ground states, challenging new rules intended to make it easier to vote during the pandemic. #52 However, the case was put on hold after the judge received word of the [COVID-19](Covid-19.md) pandemic. The dis- covery process was delayed, and a trial date was not likely to happen until 2021. #53 Butowsky took credit for the story, and when Fox retracted the article, he emailed Judge Andrew Napoli- tano, a Fox contributor, to ask if he could share with him a lot of information that is not known right now about Seth. #54 In Michigan, the two men behind the robocalls were identified as Jack Burkman and Jacob Wohl. They were charged with four felonies. In New York, a real civil rights group, the National Coalition on Black Civic Participation, sued Burkman and Wohl in federal court on behalf of eight voters who had received a Project 1599 robocall. #55 On October 26, 2020, the day of the election, the judge in the New York case granted a restraining order against the fraudulent robocalls. The terms of the settlement were confidential. #56 Trump launched a months-long campaign to convince the public that the presidency was stolen from him. He accused corrupt forces of registering dead voters and stuffing ballot boxes. #57 Fox News was also a key player in helping Trump win the election. They had numerous guests and hosts who claimed vote fraud and manipulation, and even suggested that the Dominion Voting Systems machines were used to steal Trump's election. #58 Fox settled with the Rich families out of court, without ever having to admit wrongdoing. The Rich fami- lies would get a large sum of money, but the network won because the settlement meant that there was a price to be paid for telling harmful lies. #59 Election fraud activist and influencer Sydney Powell helped organize a prayer event for Giuliani, who had contracted COVID-19, live streamed it, and it went viral. It brought thousands of new followers to Couch’s Twitter account, which he used to promote the cause of election fraud. #60 On January 6, thousands of Trump supporters invaded the US Capitol, destroying property and beating up police officers. Matt Couch, the man who had announced that Aaron Rich was involved in the transfer of DNC documents to WikiLeaks, retracted his statements and apologized. #61 On January 14, 2021, Butowsky published his own retraction and apology. During 2017 and 2018 I made a number of comments stating or implying that Aaron Rich, the brother of Seth Rich who was tragically mur- dered in July 2016, had been involved in downloading and transferring emails from the DNC to WikiLeaks. I never had physical proof to back up any such statements or suggestions, which I now acknowledge I should not have made. #62 In 2021, the FBI released a few hundred pages of documents that mentioned Seth or Aaron Rich, but they contained no new revelations and didn’t add much of importance to what was already known. #63 I got together with Joel and Mary in New York, and they told me stories about Seth that gave them hope and reminded them of the full life he’d lived. They hoped that with the lawsuit over, they could reconnect with some of Seth’s friends and retain some link to his life. #64 Butowsky and Couch, the sources, stopped talking about Seth and Aaron Rich after the lawsuits were dis- missed. Butowsky began rebuilding his public profile as a financial commentator, and Couch searched for his place in the post-Trump political universe. #65 Some conference goers were there to support the notion that the 2020 election was stolen from Trump, and that it couldn’t be trusted. Others were there to encourage people to run for office and make changes within their local communities. #66 In 2021, Couch shared an article that suggested coronavirus vaccines were a ploy by [Bill Gates](Bill%20Gates.md) and Elon Musk to kill off millions of people and replace the human workforce with robots. Twitter suspended Couch indefinitely for violating its policy against spreading misleading and potentially harmful information related to COVID-19. #67 Defamation cases are extremely difficult to win, and Dominion Voting Systems, the company accused of vote-rigging and other crimes by Trump and his followers, had to sue Fox News for $1. 6 billion in damages. It was difficult to convince big firms to take the case. #68 Joel and Mary had arranged interviews with Seth’s friends and others who had known him. I wanted to understand who Seth was and where he’d come from, so I flew to Omaha to meet with Joel and Mary. #69 Even if the police did find who shot Seth, there was nothing they could do to change the public’s mind about him. His name would continue to come up in news stories for years to come, a cautionary tale about the personal, legal, and financial repercussions of spreading lies. ---- - **First Indexed:** 06-18-2023 - 4:59 pm - **Last Updated:** 06-18-2023 - 5:23 pm