Fox News on May 23rd removed its article on Seth Rich, after criticism of Rod Wheeler, a private investigator who was contracted by the Rich family to conduct an investigation. It is unclear if the article removal is to address the Rich’s family criticism of Wheeler, or the most important claim in the article, that a federal investigator in the case sees a connection between Seth Rich and Wikileaks, as explained by the now removed original article here, and archived here:

           “I have seen and read the emails between Seth Rich and WikiLeaks,” the federal investigator told Fox News, confirming the MacFadyen connection. He said the emails are in possession of the FBI, while the stalled case is in the hands of the Washington Police Department.

            The revelation is consistent with the findings of Wheeler, whose private investigation firm was hired by a third party on behalf of Rich’s family to probe the case.

            The federal investigator, who requested anonymity, said 44,053 emails and 17,761 attachments between Democratic National Committee leaders, spanning from January 2015 through late May 2016, were transferred from Rich to MacFadyen before May 21.

Wheeler had released his findings on the Rich case, but according to the Rich family statement, “contractually was barred from speaking to press or anyone outside of law enforcement or the family unless explicitly authorized by the family.” After the family expressed its disapproval, applying legal pressure on Wheeler with the happy assistance of DNC apparatchik Brad Bauman, the liberal media began making it look like Wheeler is backtracking. For instance, Wheeler told Buzzfeed on the evening of May 16 that he had no personal knowledge of whether Rich sent email to a contact at Wikileaks. Yet on the morning of May 16, Wheeler told Fox 5 that he had sources at the FBI confirming there was evidence of communication between Seth Rich and Wikileaks. However, saying you have sources that tell you about some evidence, doesn’t mean you have personally seen this evidence, and thus, the morning statement of May 16 doesn’t contradict the statement in the evening. 

The only thing that Wheeler had stated was inaccurate about the Fox 5 story is that he “doesn’t know where the computers are,” while in the original story, he stated about the computer, that “I believe (it) is either at the police department or either at the FBI. I have been told both.” Even when the subsequent Fox News story that is archived here stated that “the stalled case is in the hands of the Washington Police,” that statement did not contradict Wheeler’s statement, because Fox News didn’t state where the computer itself was.

The fundamental point here is that Wheeler has not retracted his claim that there is a federal investigator who says that Rich sent email to Wikileaks. Also, Fox News has not retracted its own claim that it spoke to the federal investigator and confirmed this information.   


Meanwhile, Kim Dotcom has released his much-awaited statement on his connection to Seth Rich and how he knows Rich was involved in leaking information to Wikileaks. His statement reads:

            I know that Seth Rich was involved in the DNC leak. 

            I know this because in late 2014 a person contacted me about helping me to start a branch of the Internet Party in the United States. He called himself Panda. I now know that Panda was Seth Rich.

             Panda advised me that he was working on voter analytics tools and other technologies that the Internet Party may find helpful. I communicated with Panda on a number of topics including corruption and the influence of corporate money in politics. “He wanted to change that from the inside.”

Contact Steve Cunningham at stevecunningham@juno.com

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