Topic: WorldNetDaily
WorldNetDaily just can't stop exploiting -- and lying about -- the death of Seth Rich in order to peddle its own far-right political narratives. Bob Unruh tried to keep right-wing conspiracy theorires about Rich alive in a Nov. 29 article:
The details about the murder of Seth Rich, a Democratic National Committee worker shot and killed as he walked to his Washington, D.C., home in 2016, remain clouded in mystery.
Police claimed it was a robbery gone bad but his wallet was untouched, and he was shot in the back.
WND columnist Jack Cashill has documented that it just may have been Rich who downloaded DNC details to give to muckracker Julian Assange to post at WikiLeaks on the internet at the time.
Investigator Ty Clevenger also had revealed that the FBI has Rich's personal and work computers, and officials at the investigation team have asked for permission to release those details – over 66 years.
But that apparently is about to change.
The Gateway Pundit reports a federal judge has ruled the FBI must turn over evidence regarding Rich's murder.
Yes, Unruh's two main sources are both conspiracy theorists -- Cashill and Gateway Pundit. And as we pointed out when Cashill touted Clevenger to bolster his conspiracy theory, Clevenger is a discredited lawyer who is a Seth Rich conspiracy dead-ender. Unruh went on to hype Clevenger and the conspiracy theory:
The report explained, "Attorney Ty Clevenger is the bulldog attorney who has been after the DOJ and FBI for years to get to the bottom of who supplied the DNC and [former DNC chair John] Podesta’s emails to WikiLeaks during the 2016 election."
It continued, "This was always the key to the Russia collusion nightmare. If Russia didn’t supply emails to WikiLeaks (the FBI has never asked WikiLeaks who supplied the emails by the way) then the Russia collusion story was built on a lie.
[...]
Social media explained, "Seth Rich is the guy that was murdered because he most likely had incriminating information on many Democrats."
"Social media," it turns it, was just some random Twitter troll.
This was followed by a Nov. 30 article by Alicia Powe, a former WND writer who's now with Gateway Pundit, that glorified Clevenger. The credit is a bit murky; the subheadline claims that the article is about what Clevenger "tells WND," but the byline states "WND News Services," which WND sticks on outside content like Gateway Pundit. Either way, Powe is all about trying to lionize Clevenger and perpetuating the conspiracy theory:
The corporate media still maintains the state-dictated narrative that Rich was killed during a botched robbery and, in tandem with Big Tech, continues to systemically warn that reports of Rich leaking a trove of emails to WikiLeaks founder and political hostage Julian Assange are "fake news” and "conspiracy theories."
But defense attorney Ty Clevenger is still on the case, leaving no stone unturned, in a legal battle against the Federal Bureau of Investigation that has spanned nearly six years.
[...]
The intelligence agencies and DNC claimed Trump "colluded with Russia” to hack their server and badgered Trump with baseless allegations in an investigation that spanned nearly the entire duration of his presidency, but suspected that Rich leaked the information.
Asked whether Rich leaked the DNC emails, Clevenger's answer was decisive. "Yes. I don't think the FBI would have fought me this hard – unless there was something really embarrassing they were trying to keep under wraps,” he said. "Unfortunately, the conclusive evidence that I have seen in a case pending in DC is sealed, so I can't talk about it.
"But I have tried to get [Rep.] Jim Jordan and John Durham to subpoena the evidence from the civil case because I think the public ought to know what's in there. So far, neither of them is interested.
"I don't know who killed Seth Rich. I'm not trying to get in the middle of the murder investigation. I've always focused on finding any evidence that he was involved in the leak. When I proved that he was the source of the leak, then I'd start making noise about the murder investigation.”
[Julian] Assange repeatedly denied that Russia or any "state party" was involved in the leaking of DNC emails, and the WikiLeaks founder even strongly alluded that Rich was the source of the emails.
In fact, the Mueller report found that the DNC emails were, in fact, stolen by Russia and that Assange had been in communication with Russian military officials before and after Rich's death. Powe didn't mention that inconvenient fact, of course, nor did she disclose that Clevenger was the lawyer for Ed Butowsky, a right-wing operative on whose behalf he sued various people and media outlets for purported defamation -- nearly all of which have been either withdrawn or thrown out of court, in no small part because Butowsky lied during his lawsuit against one media outlet. Powe also cryptically wrote:
Clevenger warned that Fox News is nearly "as involved in the cover-up as the FBI.”
"Fox News paid for everyone's silence,” he said. "I begged Fox to hold off settling the case and they paid money through the nose not just to make the case go away and silence everybody. Fox News is the controlled opposition,” he said, contending it's no surprise when "one Murdoch sat on one of the boards for the Clinton Foundation. The Murdochs are 'conservative' as long as it makes them money – they are professionally Republicans.”
Powe refused to explain things any further, but she is presumably referring to Fox News' settlement with Rich's family in January 2021 -- reportedly for seven figures -- over a false story it published on its website about Rich that featured statements made by Butowsky, who retracted all of them as part of the settlement. WND censored all mention of that settlement on its website because it blows up the conspiracy (and cynical exploitation) narrative.
