Topic: WorldNetDaily
Since the beginning of the year, WorldNetDaily has been trying to revive the "Clinton Body Count" -- the utterly discredited list of supposedly mysterious deaths of people surrounding the Clintons, however tangentally -- heck it's even trying to add to the list.
Well, WND has decided it's not going to let the facts, or even the wishes of the family of one person it desperately wants to put on the list, get in the way of its beloved anti-Clinton conspiracies.
An anonymously written Aug. 21 WND article (yes, another article a WND writer is too embarrassed to put his or her byline on) purports to examine "33 of the most mysterious deaths linked to Bill and Hillary Clinton," focusing on "people associated with the Clintons who have died the most mysterious and often violent deaths." The article complains that "Left-leaning 'fact-check' websites have dismissed “Clinton body count” lists circulating on the Web for many years," yet WND makes no effort to rebut any specific claim made by a fact-checking website in its article.
The anonymous WND writer then portrayed the family of murder victim Seth Rich asking that people stop spinning baseless conspiracy theories around his death as part of the conspiracy:
When DNC staffer Seth Rich was gunned down near his affluent neighborhood in Washington, D.C., on July 10, theories exploded in the news media about Rich’s possible involvement in the WikiLeaks dump of nearly 20,000 Democratic National Committee emails – some of the messages suggesting that the Democratic Party favored nominee Hillary Clinton over Bernie Sanders from the start.
Now reports reveal Brad Bauman, the man hired by Rich’s family to end the “conspiracy theories” surrounding the unsolved murder, is a public relations manager with the Pastorum Group and specializes in “crisis communications” for the Democratic Party.
WikiLeaks broke the news on Twitter, tweeting: “Seth Rich’s new ‘family spokesman’ is Brad Bauman, a professional Democrat crisis PR consultant with the Pastorum Group.”
Pastorum Group was founded by Joseph Cohen, according to a press release posted on Twitter. It describes Cohen as “a campaign veteran who has previously worked at SEIU, the Democratic National Committee, and Obama for America.” Also, the release says Bauman is a former executive director of the Congressional Progressive Caucus.
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Rich’s father, Joel Rich, has begged his son’s killer to come forward. Bauman released the following statement to the International Business Times on behalf of the Rich Family:
“The family welcomes any and all information that could lead to the identification of the individuals responsible, and certainly welcomes contributions that could lead to new avenues of investigation. That said, some are attempting to politicize this horrible tragedy, and in their attempts to do so, are actually causing more harm than good and impeding on the ability for law enforcement to properly do their job. For the sake of finding Seth’s killer, and for the sake of giving the family the space they need at this terrible time, they are asking for the public to refrain from pushing unproven and harmful theories about Seth’s murder.”
A lot of what WND writes about those 33 "mysterious deaths" are simply rehashes of earlier dubious reporting, such as referencing the purported mystery of Victor Thorn's apparent suicide while omitting the fact that Thorn was a Holocaust denier who blamed Israel for the 9/11 attacks and wrote for a website considered a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center.
WND also repeats the claim that John Ashe "was scheduled to testify in just days with Chinese businessman and co-defendant Ng Lap Seng, who was accused of smuggling $4.5 million into the U.S. and lying that it was to buy casino chips and more." According to Snopes, Ashe was only scheduled to attend some standard pre-trial meetings, and no part of his court case pertained to the Clintons at all.
WND tries mightily to create mystery around the 2010 death of Charles Ruff, who defended Clinton in his impeachment trial more than a decade earlier. Ruff "reportedly died 'after an accident at his Washington home,'" WND writes, adding "One report said he was found unconscious outside his shower. Other reports indicated he had a heart attack."
WND puts most of the old chestnuts on the list -- Vince Foster, Jerry Parks, etc. Snopes debunked them all, but WND won't acknowledge it because the truth conflicts with its conspiratorial anti-Clinton agenda.
