Newt Gingrich spreads conspiracy theory about Democrat murder

Former House

Former House speaker pushes unsubstantiated
claims that Seth Rich gave information to WikiLeaks

One-Minute Read

Speaking on Fox News
yesterday, he said: “We have this very strange story now of this
young man who worked for the Democratic National Committee, who
apparently was assassinated at four in the morning, having given
WikiLeaks something like 53,000 emails and 17,000
attachments.”

Rich, 27, was shot dead as he walked home in Washington DC on 10
July last year.

The claim “that Rich could have been murdered for leaking that
information has long been a popular right-wing theory,” says
the Chicago Tribune.

On Friday, the Russian embassy in the UK accused the media of
looking the other way. Russian agents have been accused of hacking
into the Democrats’ email systems and passing the information to
WikiLeaks.

#WikiLeaks informer Seth Rich murdered in US but
%uD83C%uDDEC%uD83C%uDDE7 MSM was so busy accusing Russian hackers
to take notice. pic.twitter.com/0XVezTyfHM

— Russian Embassy, UK (@RussianEmbassy) May 19, 2017

According to the Washington Post, police investigating
Rich’s killing, which remains one of many unsolved murder cases in
the city, have found no evidence that he contacted WikiLeaks.

However, Fox News contributor Rod Wheeler last week claimed he
had “new evidence” that the DNC worker was the source of the leaked
emails.

“By Thursday, after follow-up
questioning from CNN and NBC News, Wheeler had largely recanted his
story,” says the Washington Post.

Rich’s family deny the accusations and have threatened Wheeler
with legal action if he continues to discuss the case.

Family spokesman Brad Bauman said: “Anyone who continues to push
this fake news story after it was so thoroughly debunked is proving
to the world they have a transparent political agenda or are a
sociopath.”