Seth rich was not source of leaked DNC emails, Mueller report confirms

Sarah Mervosh

April 21, 2019 12:54 AM

The special counsel’s report confirmed this week that Seth Rich, a young Democratic National Committee employee whose unsolved killing became grist for a right-wing conspiracy theory, was not the source of thousands of internal DNC emails that WikiLeaks released during the 2016 presidential race, officially debunking a notion that had persisted without support for years.

Seth Rich Was Not Source of Leaked DNC Emails, Mueller Report Confirms

Tucked amid hundreds of pages of the report’s main findings, the special counsel, Robert Mueller, took aim at WikiLeaks and its founder, Julian Assange, for falsely implying that Rich was somehow involved in the dissemination of the emails, an act that aided President Donald Trump’s campaign.

“WikiLeaks and Assange made several public statements apparently designed to obscure the source of the materials that WikiLeaks was releasing,” according to the report, which showed that WikiLeaks corresponded with the true source of the leaked emails — Russian hackers — after Rich’s death.

The confirmation comes after years of anguish for Rich’s family, who fought attempts to politicize and spread misinformation about his killing, which is believed to have happened during a bungled robbery attempt.

The theory linking Rich to the email leak took root in conservative circles and was cited by prominent conservatives like Newt Gingrich and right-wing commentators like Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and Alex Jones of Infowars. WikiLeaks offered a $20,000 reward for information about Rich’s killing, fueling speculation that he was the source. Fox News also published an article, which the network later retracted, suggesting that Rich was killed in retaliation for having leaked the emails.

In a statement, Rich’s brother, Aaron Rich, responded to the special counsel’s report, saying it provided “hard facts that demonstrate this conspiracy is false.”

“I hope that the people who pushed, fueled, spread, ran headlines, articles, interviews, talk and opinion shows, or in any way used my family’s tragedy to advance their political agendas — despite our pleas that what they were saying was not based on any facts — will take responsibility for the unimaginable pain they have caused us,” he said.

Rich was 27 when he died after being shot on the streets of Washington on July 10, 2016.

Sarah Mervosh