Politics

EXPLOSIVE New Lawsuit: White House Pushed Phony Seth Rich Story

REUTERS/Joshua Roberts

Daily Caller News Foundation logo
Kevin Daley Supreme Court correspondent
Font Size:

A private investigator hired to look into the Seth Rich murder filed a lawsuit Tuesday claiming that the network pursued and published an unsubstantiated story in consultation with the White House.

The filing alleges that President Donald Trump himself reviewed drafts of the article before it was published on Fox News.com in May. The network later retracted the story.

NPR’s David Folkenflik first obtained the lawsuit, which was filed Tuesday in the Southern District of New York, a federal court based in Manhattan.

Though the allegations are dramatic, it is not unusual for plaintiffs to lodge explosive claims in the early stages of litigation. Furthermore, the lawsuit makes a number of other unverified claims that may undermine the credibility of the most serious accusations at hand.

The suit is brought by Rod Wheeler, a former police detective and Fox News contributor who left the network given his involvement with the story. The article in question was written by Fox News reporter Malia Zimmerman. Citing Wheeler’s own investigative work and a single anonymous FBI source, Zimmerman’s story claimed that the release of former Hillary Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta’s emails was not the work of Russian hackers, but internal DNC sources — quite possibly the 27-year-old Rich, who was killed under mysterious circumstances in July 2016.

Wheeler alleges that he and another Fox News contributor named Ed Butowsky met with former White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer in April in advance of the article’s publication to brief him on Zimmerman’s work. Spicer confirmed that the meeting took place in a statement to NPR. His statement contradicts his comments on the article during a briefing with reporters on May 16, in which he claimed he was unaware of the story.

One month later, just a day and a half before Zimmerman’s story was published, Wheeler claims Butowsky left him a voicemail claiming that the Trump administration was intensely interested in the story. “We have the full attention of the White House on this,” he said. “And tomorrow, let’s close this deal, whatever we’ve got to do.”

Butowsky allegedly followed up with a text. “Not to add any more pressure but the president just read the article,” he wrote. “He wants the article out immediately. It’s now all up to you.”

Spicer denied that the president was involved with the story in any capacity.

Now, Wheeler claims that Zimmerman fabricated quotes and attributed them to him under pressure from the White House. He is also suing the network for racial discrimination, claiming he was disadvantaged in the promotion process as a black man.

He further alleges that he and his Fox News colleagues pursued the story in order to relieve pressure on Trump, occasioned by the ongoing investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. Zimmerman’s Rich story was published just one week after Trump abruptly dismissed former FBI director James Comey.

Fox News President Jay Wallace emphatically denied the allegations, and added they had no evidence Wheeler was misquoted.

“The accusation that FoxNews.com published Malia Zimmerman’s story to help detract from coverage of the Russia collusion issue is completely erroneous,” he said in a statement. “The retraction of this story is still being investigated internally and we have no evidence that Rod Wheeler was misquoted by Zimmerman.”

The story was later retracted and widely panned as inaccurate. The FBI claims it is not involved in the Rich investigation, while Washington police say it appears he was the victim of a botched robbery.

Follow Kevin on Twitter

Send tips to kevin@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

PREMIUM ARTICLE: Subscribe To Keep Reading

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign Up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
BENEFITS READERS PASS PATRIOTS FOUNDERS
Daily and Breaking Newsletters
Daily Caller Shows
Ad Free Experience
Exclusive Articles
Custom Newsletters
Editor Daily Rundown
Behind The Scenes Coverage
Award Winning Documentaries
Patriot War Room
Patriot Live Chat
Exclusive Events
Gold Membership Card
Tucker Mug

What does Founders Club include?

Tucker Mug and Membership Card
Founders

Readers,

Instead of sucking up to the political and corporate powers that dominate America, The Daily Caller is fighting for you — our readers. We humbly ask you to consider joining us in this fight.

Now that millions of readers are rejecting the increasingly biased and even corrupt corporate media and joining us daily, there are powerful forces lined up to stop us: the old guard of the news media hopes to marginalize us; the big corporate ad agencies want to deprive us of revenue and put us out of business; senators threaten to have our reporters arrested for asking simple questions; the big tech platforms want to limit our ability to communicate with you; and the political party establishments feel threatened by our independence.

We don't complain -- we can't stand complainers -- but we do call it how we see it. We have a fight on our hands, and it's intense. We need your help to smash through the big tech, big media and big government blockade.

We're the insurgent outsiders for a reason: our deep-dive investigations hold the powerful to account. Our original videos undermine their narratives on a daily basis. Even our insistence on having fun infuriates them -- because we won’t bend the knee to political correctness.

One reason we stand apart is because we are not afraid to say we love America. We love her with every fiber of our being, and we think she's worth saving from today’s craziness.

Help us save her.

A second reason we stand out is the sheer number of honest responsible reporters we have helped train. We have trained so many solid reporters that they now hold prominent positions at publications across the political spectrum. Hear a rare reasonable voice at a place like CNN? There’s a good chance they were trained at Daily Caller. Same goes for the numerous Daily Caller alumni dominating the news coverage at outlets such as Fox News, Newsmax, Daily Wire and many others.

Simply put, America needs solid reporters fighting to tell the truth or we will never have honest elections or a fair system. We are working tirelessly to make that happen and we are making a difference.

Since 2010, The Daily Caller has grown immensely. We're in the halls of Congress. We're in the Oval Office. And we're in up to 20 million homes every single month. That's 20 million Americans like you who are impossible to ignore.

We can overcome the forces lined up against all of us. This is an important mission but we can’t do it unless you — the everyday Americans forgotten by the establishment — have our back.

Please consider becoming a Daily Caller Patriot today, and help us keep doing work that holds politicians, corporations and other leaders accountable. Help us thumb our noses at political correctness. Help us train a new generation of news reporters who will actually tell the truth. And help us remind Americans everywhere that there are millions of us who remain clear-eyed about our country's greatness.

In return for membership, Daily Caller Patriots will be able to read The Daily Caller without any of the ads that we have long used to support our mission. We know the ads drive you crazy. They drive us crazy too. But we need revenue to keep the fight going. If you join us, we will cut out the ads for you and put every Lincoln-headed cent we earn into amplifying our voice, training even more solid reporters, and giving you the ad-free experience and lightning fast website you deserve.

Patriots will also be eligible for Patriots Only content, newsletters, chats and live events with our reporters and editors. It's simple: welcome us into your lives, and we'll welcome you into ours.

We can save America together.

Become a Daily Caller Patriot today.

Signature

Neil Patel