Topic: WorldNetDaily
It's fitting that this column by Jack Cashill was posted at WorldNetDaily on April 1, since it's a cruel joke of a piece that endeavors to perpetuate discredited Seth Rich conspiracy theories.
Cashill begins by citing the notoriously unreliable Gateway Pundit, who was quoting Ty Clevenger, who we've pointed out is a gadfly Clinton-hater; one reason right-wing conspiracy-mongers have latched onto the Seth Rich story is because of their pathological hatred of all things Clinton. Hew then referenced "veteran news analyst Ellen Ratner," who reportedly forwarded the idea that Rich leaked Democratic emails to WikiLeaks, insisting she "had no reason to make this up." But as we noted, the only evidence linked to this is a video fellow conspirator Ed Butowsky tweeted out of Ratner in which she said nothing about Rich.
Nevertheless, Cashill writes, "Seth Rich and his brother, Aaron, were responsible for releasing the DNC emails to WikiLeaks," [WikiLeaks leader Julian] Assange reportedly told Ratner, and she in turn told Butowsky. Butowsky made this claim in a complex, multi-party defamation lawsuit filed in July 2019." Cashill didn't mention that there's a separate lawsuit in which Aaron Rich is suing Butowsky and others for falsely claiming that he was involved in the theft of the DNC files, which has already resulted in the retraction of a Washington Times column making that claim and an apology from conspiracy-monger Jerome Corsi -- who, as we've reported, knew that the core conspiracy theory he and WND were promoting about Rich giving the DNC emails to WikiLeaks -- was false at the time he and WND were promoting it.
Cashill then defended the alleged honor of the "well-intentioned" Butowsky:
In fact, Butowsky was not a reporter but an occasional Fox News contributor on economic issues. He was not "concocting a story about Seth Rich's death" but attempting to solve a genuine mystery.
He had information that the major media did not, including Ratner's testimony and unfiltered conversations with Rich's parents.
NPR reporter David Folkenflik had less interest in solving Rich's murder than he did in slandering Butowsky. He dug into the educational background of this amateur investigator more aggressively than NPR had ever dug into Barack Obama's.
Other alternative journalists, most notably the irrepressible Matt Couch, faced similar legal and media harassment.
Eventually, Fox News was sued into silence. This widespread suppression would have had some justification if major media journalists knew anything about Rich's murder, but they did not.
Cashill doesn't mention that Fox News has plenty of legal firepower and could stand by its bogus Seth Rich story had it chose to; instead, it was retracted.He also doesn't mention that the Mueller Report showed that the DNC emails were hacked by Russians and that Julian Assange was lying when he perpetuated the story of Seth Rich's purported involvement.
And, as we noted the last time Cashill claimed this, Couch is less "irrepressible" and more a fellow empathy-devoid conspiracy-monger who is also getting sued by Aaron Rich for defamation.
As with his fellow conspiracy-mongers like Butowsky, Clevenger and Couch, the conspiracy is always -- always -- more important than the facts for Cashill. And he doesn't care who gets hurt in the process as long as the conspiracy is perpetuated.
