Rolling Stone reporter takes aim at Fox news over Seth Rich murder & gets blasted for failing to get facts right

Seth Rich ‘truthers,’ including internet rights activist Kim Dotcom, are hounding a journalist for his book about the former DNC staffer’s death. They say he’s profiting from Rich’s death - the very thing he accuses them of.

Seth Rich was 27 years old when he was gunned down near his apartment in Washington, DC, in 2016. The murder of the Democratic National Committee staffer was declared a botched robbery by police, but widespread online speculation at the time suggested that Rich was responsible for leaking a trove of party emails to Wikileaks, and was killed in retaliation. These emails revealed, among other things, a party-wide effort to rig the Democratic primary against Bernie Sanders.

The theory that Rich was assassinated was later picked up by Fox News’ Sean Hannity, who brought an investigator onto his show to suggest that Rich was the source of the emails. Hannity’s ratings skyrocketed, and on Sunday, Rolling Stone journalist Andy Kroll published a lengthy investigation accusing Fox of turning a tragic slaying into a “living nightmare” for Rich’s family.

Kroll is currently writing a book on the “conspiracy theories” surrounding Rich’s murder. Rather than deep-diving into these theories, Kroll’s book - if the Rolling Stone feature is anything to go by - will instead retell the killing as a botched robbery, and slam the right-wingers for attempting to argue otherwise.

Kroll will insist that Russia “hacked” the DNC emails, a claim that is asserted frequently in Washington and in the media, but is not backed up by any evidence.

One of the key proponents of the assassination theory was internet entrepreneur turned political activist Kim Dotcom, currently facing extradition to the US on copyright infringement charges. Kroll described how Rich’s family successfully lobbied Hannity against featuring Dotcom on his show, and spoke no more of Dotcom until the eccentric activist himself wrote on Twitter that he hadn't been contacted by Kroll for the forthcoming book.

Dotcom insisted in 2017 that Seth Rich was WikiLeaks’ source, and promised to give Congress written testimony should they ask for it. Two years earlier, Dotcom hinted that WikiLeaks and Assange had “access to information” that would make them “Hillary Clinton’s worst nightmare” in the 2016 election.

Still, Kroll seems uninterested in Kim Dotcom’s claims, or even getting his personal details right. The Rolling Stone article describes Dotcom’s “real name” as Schmitz, ignoring the fact that he had it legally changed in 2005. Nor did Kroll talk to Rich’s family, despite insisting that he’s taking their side against Fox News’ painful retelling of their son’s death. In fact, they declined to speak to him, suggesting that they’re through with reliving the events of 2016, no matter the agenda.

Furthermore, the fact that Wikileaks editor Julian Assange himself offered a reward of $20,000 for information leading to the conviction of Rich’s killer is mentioned as fuel for conspiracy theories, rather than an attempt to figure out whether the original story was correct.

Kroll’s book likely won’t offer up any new information on the murder of Seth Rich. Instead, Kroll says he’s more interested in holding Fox News “accountable” for spreading “alternate realities,” he told CNN’s Brian Stelter over the weekend. Stelter added that the theory was pushed by Fox to distract from the competing theory that Russia meddled in the 2016 election - itself a conspiracy theory.

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