A new lawsuit alleges the White House was involved in the Fox News effort to spread conspiracy theories about slain DNC staffer Seth Rich. In a statement issued in response to the lawsuit, former Press Secretary Sean Spicer downplays its core elements...much as the initial statement about Donald Trump Jr.’s meeting with a Kremlin-affiliated lawyer downplayed that event. Hmmm.
At the core of the story is a man named Ed Butowsky. NPR, which broke the story of the lawsuit, describes Butowsky as a “silver-haired brash investor who became known for helping newly rich athletes figure out how to manage their money.” He also works as an unpaid Fox commentator, and was the man this lawsuit says helped concoct the Seth Rich story and act as a liaison between Fox News and the White House. Spicer confirmed that talking to Butowsky, saying he “asked for a 10 minute meeting.”
The lawsuit was filed by Rod Wheeler, a former homicide detective who is also a Fox News contributor, who claims Butowsky paid him $5,000 to investigate the Rich story. Wheeler apparently did so and didn’t make much progress, but he did find out enough to realize that subsequent Fox News stories on the case were untrue. The lawsuit alleges that the Fox stories also included fabricated quotes from Wheeler himself.
The lawsuit also alleges that Butowsky sent emails to Fox News producers with guidance on the story, saying that “One of the big conclusions we need to draw from this is that the Russians did not hack our computer systems and steal emails and there was no collusion like Trump with the Russians.”
Here is Spicer’s statement on the lawsuit:
“Ed [Butowsky] is a longtime supporter of the president's agenda who often appears in media. He asked for a 10 minute meeting, with no specified topic to catch up and said he would be bringing along a contributor to Fox News. As Ed himself has noted, he has never met the President, and the White House has nothing to do with the story.”
This is similar to the first statement released by Donald Trump Jr. after the New York Times revealed he organized a meeting with a Kremlin-linked Russian lawyer. Last night we learned that Trump himself helped draft Trump Jr’s statements, which initially brushed the conversation aside as “a short introductory meeting.”
Updated 08/02/2017: In a statement sent to The Outline, Fox News denied the allegations in the lawsuit, stating that "The retraction of this story is still being investigated internally and we have no evidence that Rod Wheeler was misquoted by Zimmerman."
