Family of slain DNC staffer sues Fox News.

Courtesy of ABC News:

Rich was shot and killed in Washington, D.C., in July 2016. Police said he was shot several times in the back and later died at a local hospital. Rich was 27 years old and worked as a voter-expansion data director for the DNC at the time. 

The May 16, 2017, Fox News article, which allegedly contained "false and fabricated facts," according to the lawsuit, fueled conspiracy theories that Rich was murdered in connection with a massive WikiLeaks data dump of 20,000 DNC emails days after his death. 

In the suit, which was obtained by ABC News, Rich's parents, Joel and Mary Rich, claim that Fox News investigative reporter Malia Zimmerman and Fox News commenter Ed Butowsky reached out to the family under false pretenses to support stories that Seth Rich leaked DNC emails to WikiLeaks. 

The lawsuit claims that Fox News, Zimmerman and Butowsky are liable for the harm caused by the report because they "aided and abetted the intentional infliction of emotional distress" caused by the story about Seth Rich and alleges that Fox News provided with a national platform to develop what the lawsuit dubs a "sham story."

So to be clear Donald Trump's favorite news outlet is being sued for spreading "fake news."

Nice to see that irony has made a full recovery and is back in the saddle.

But Fox News is not the only Right Wing outlet being sued for spreading conspiracy theories.

Courtesy of The Hill: 

A counterprotester at the deadly white supremacist rally last year in Charlottesville, Va., is suing the media outlet Infowars, its owner Alex Jones and seven others for defamation. 

Georgetown Law’s Civil Rights Clinic filed the lawsuit Tuesday in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Virginia on behalf of Brennan Gilmore, who alleges that Alex Jones and other far-right supporters, including former Rep. Allen West (R-Fla.), published stories about him that damaged his reputation and mobilized an army of followers to pursue a campaign of harassment and threats against him. 

Gilmore argues he became the target of elaborate online conspiracies that placed him at the center of a “deep-state” plot to stage the Charlottesville attack and destabilize the Trump administration after he posted a video he captured on Twitter of the car attack that killed Heather Heyer and injured 36 others. 

“From Sandy Hook to ‘Pizzagate’ to Charlottesville, Las Vegas and now Parkland, the defendants thrive by inciting devastating real-world consequences with the propaganda and lies they publish as ‘news,’” Gilmore said in a statement. 

“Today, I’m asking a court to hold them responsible for the personal and professional damage their lies have caused me, and, more importantly, to deter them from repeating this dangerous pattern of defamation and intimidation.”

Damn! First YouTube removes advertising from his videos, and now Alex Jones is getting his ass sued off. 

I would say that today was a banner day for truth and justice, would you not agree?

At Trump's bidding CIA Director met with promoter of conspiracy theory that DNC hack was an inside job, and NOT the Russians.

Courtesy of The Intercept: 

CIA Director Mike Pompeo met late last month with a former U.S. intelligence official who has become an advocate for a disputed theory that the theft of the Democratic National Committee’s emails during the 2016 presidential campaign was an inside job, rather than a hack by Russian intelligence. 

Pompeo met on October 24 with William Binney, a former National Security Agency official-turned-whistleblower who co-authored an analysis published by a group of former intelligence officials that challenges the U.S. intelligence community’s official assessment that Russian intelligence was behind last year’s theft of data from DNC computers. Binney and the other former officials argue that the DNC data was “leaked,” not hacked, “by a person with physical access” to the DNC’s computer system. 

In an interview with The Intercept, Binney said Pompeo told him that President Donald Trump had urged the CIA director to meet with Binney to discuss his assessment that the DNC data theft was an inside job. During their hour-long meeting at CIA headquarters, Pompeo said Trump told him that if Pompeo “want[ed] to know the facts, he should talk to me,” Binney said.

So if you are wondering if this is about that old debunked story about the murder of Seth Rich by Hillary Clinton (Which is referenced below.), yes it most certainly is.

This Binney guy is a frequent guest on Info Wars with Alex Jones and just about any fringe conspiracy focused radio show or blog that will have him.

He has some impressive credentials so people often take him seriously, but the majority of the charges he makes remain unsubstantiated. 

This particular conspiracy theory has been debunked by essentially every intelligence agency in the country, including the CIA by the way, so the very fact that Pompeo talked to this guy speaks to Trump's desperation to get Robert Mueller and the other investigators off his back.

This of course is another reason why I was so frustrated with Donna Brazile, because her mentions of Seth Rich in her book only pour more gasoline on the dying embers of the "DNC hack was an inside job" conspiracy theory.

Donna Braziles' new book has some serious problems.

One of the charges in Brazile's book is that an agreement which the DNC signed with the Clinton campaign gave the campaign control over who the DNC hired.

However Sam Stein with the Daily Beast sees a problem with that contention.

Courtesy of the Daily Beast:  

From early June 2015 until mid-September of that year, the Democratic National Committee operated without a communications director. 

In normal years, this would have been a problematic, perhaps embarrassing, staffing failure—and nothing more. But the timing of this particular vacancy made it operationally catastrophic. Just as the presidential campaign was heating up, the party’s main political arm was understaffed in a key department. 

When the committee finally filled the void, it settled on Luis Miranda. 

Miranda had served in the Obama administration’s communications shop and was well liked among his peers. One thing he was not, however, was the first, second, or even third choice of Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign. 

In fact, he hadn’t really been on the campaign’s radar at all. Clinton’s team had sent the DNC several other options for the post, top among them Jess McIntosh, who had been serving at the time as the communications director of Emily's List. But according to half a dozen sources, their requests were ultimately set aside by then Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz, who was won over by Miranda’s pitch to emphasize her as the election year ramped up.

In other words Wasserman Schultz hired whoever the hell she wanted, and seemingly did not give two shits what the Clinton campaign recommended.

This does not sound as if the Clinton campaign had final say over anything.

But that is nothing compared to this.

Courtesy of Yahoo: 

Axios reported on Sunday that the book's dedication reads, “In loving memory of my father, Lionel Brazile Sr.; my beloved sister, Sheila Brazioutlanle; my fearless uncles Nat, Floyd, and Douglas; Harlem’s finest, my aunt Lucille; my friend and mentor, David Kaufmann; my DNC colleague and patriot, Seth Rich; and my beloved Pomeranian, Chip Joshua Marvin Brazile (Booty Wipes). I miss y’all.”

Now if the name "Seth Rich" leaps out at you it is likely because his death was part of the conspiracy theory pushed by Russian trolls, Alex Jones, and even Fox News, which claimed that Rich was the true source of those emails that Wikileaks was releasing and not Russian hackers, and that the Clintons had him killed in order to cover that up.

There was also this later in the book: 

Rich also appears elsewhere in Brazile’s book, as the Post reported earlier in the weekend. She wrote that Rich’s murder haunted her and that she installed surveillance cameras at her home and would keep the blinds in her office window closed so she could not be seen by snipers, according to the Post.

Now if Brazile accepted the official police report that Seth Rich's death was the result of an attempted robbery gone bad then why would she be so paranoid?

Look I know that people have great respect for Donna Brazile, and I have certainly come to her defense in the past, but there is something really off about all of this.

New lawsuit claims that Donald Trump worked with Fox News to concoct story that Hillary Clinton had DNC staffer murdered. Update!

That guy on the left is Jay Sekulow, Trump's attorney.

Courtesy of Bloomberg: 

President Donald Trump collaborated with Fox News to concoct a story claiming a Democratic National Committee staffer was killed in retaliation for furnishing information damaging to Hillary Clinton to Wikileaks, according to a lawsuit by a private investigator for the slain man’s family.

Rod Wheeler -- the investigator, a former Washington police detective, and an occasional Fox News contributor -- claims in his lawsuit that the president read the Fox story before it was published and suggested the insertion of quotes falsely attributed to Wheeler supporting the story’s premise. Trump wanted the story published to divert attention from the widening investigation into his campaign’s ties to Russia, Wheeler claims.

The complaint’s first paragraph includes screen shot of a May 14 text message to Wheeler from another Fox News contributor that reads: “Not to add any more pressure but the president just read the article. He wants the article out immediately. It’s now all up to you. but don’t feel the pressure." 

Seth Rich was killed on a Washington street in the middle of the night last year. The crime remains unsolved. The story was published on May 16 and later retracted by the network, according to the complaint. 

Fox News didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.

So just mull that over in your mind a little.

Donald Trump worked with is propaganda outlet, Fox News, to frame Hillary Clinton and the DNC for murder.

And the really troubling part is.....I'm not surprised.

Nor am I surprised by this:

The White House previously denied knowledge of Fox News' false report on Seth Rich. pic.twitter.com/Qcmf3lpaFt

— Adrienne Watson (@Adrienne_DNC) August 1, 2017

There is nothing, and I mean NOTHING, that these people are unwilling to do to gain, or retain, power.

Here is a response from Fox News:  

Wheeler alleges Fox News and the Trump supporter intended to deflect public attention from growing concern about the administration's ties to the Russian government. His suit charges that a Fox News reporter created quotations out of thin air and attributed them to him to propel her story. 

Fox's president of news, Jay Wallace, told NPR on Monday that there was no "concrete evidence" that Wheeler was misquoted by the reporter, Malia Zimmerman. The news executive did not address a question about the story's allegedly partisan origins. Fox News declined to allow Zimmerman to comment for this story.

There is "no concrete evidence." Well that's an interesting way to phrase it.

And the fact that they declined to comment on Trump's participation in pushing this narrative speaks volumes.

Update: Okay here is a more aggressive denial from Fox News:

Statement from @foxnews news president Jay Wallace on Rod Wheeler lawsuit claims: pic.twitter.com/bbXDqsZydx

— Paul Farhi (@farhip) August 1, 2017

Gee, if only we trusted the word of Fox News.

Update 2:

—@SarahHuckabee: "The White House didn't have any involvement in this story"

(FWIW, Spicer told me he was told about it before publication)

— Oliver Darcy (@oliverdarcy) August 1, 2017

 Okay so we are now asked to believe that once Spicey read this news that it did not find it's way to Donald Trump.

Seriously? 

Despite numerous reports to the contrary, Sean Hannity showed up for work last night, and immediately started obfuscating for Donald Trump.

If you did not get through that entire fourteen plus minutes I don;t blame you, I did not make it through last night myself.

Thankfully TPM offers the low points:

“I have to start tonight on a personal note of something that happened last week. Now, I was asked by the family of the DNC staffer that was killed in July to pull back covering the story of the death because their son and their family was hurting,” he said on his show. “Now out of respect for the family’s wishes, well, I decided for the time being not to discuss it unless there were further developments.” 

“But I also promised you, my audience, my loyal audience, that I will not stop investigating. I will not stop asking questions,” he continued. “And at a very high level, the bottom line here is the family wants the truth and I think the country deserves the truth, because this impacts so much of what the narrative in this country is now about, which is the left and their conspiracy theory. Now I can report, I am making progress. We will have a lot more coming probably sooner than later.”

First off before his "vacation" Hannity was on the Seth Rich story like white on....on...well on the average Fox News viewer.

So for him to suddenly start considering the feelings of the family sounds more like he received an ultimatum and caved in order to keep his show.

Secondly Hannity, and his supporters, have come up with an interesting response to those calls for this advertisers to abandon his program.

He is joining with a group called #StoptheScalpings, formed by two Right Wing talk radio hosts Melanie Morgan and Brian Maloney, in calling for a similar attempt directed at Rachel Maddow.

Courtesy of Think Progress:  

Stop the Scalpings is targeting Maddow because she “has been the biggest purveyor of lies and propaganda in the media today,” Morgan writes. She goes on to allude to Maddow’s regular coverage of the Trump campaign’s shady dealings with Russia, which she dismisses as a conspiracy theory despite an active FBI investigation and the appointment of a special prosecutor. 

“We will continue to announce the advertisers that finance these efforts and support these hosts who allow lies and conspiracy theories to permeate the airwaves,” she continues. “If Media Matters ceases these type of assaults, we will do the same… Until then, we will list every advertiser that supports hosts like Rachel Maddow, an outright liar, and someone who deceives the public and defames conservatives on a daily basis.”

In other words these idiots are now attacking actual journalism in an attempt to protect their right to broadcast fake news and conservative disinformation. 

Sean Hannity goes on "vacation" as advertisers flee his show likes rats on a sinking ship.

Uh oh My ANNUAL Memorial Day long weekend starts NOW. Destroy Trump/Conservative media breathless coverage starts! Did Hannity do last show?

— Sean Hannity (@seanhannity) May 25, 2017

Now if that seems familiar you may remember that Bill O'Reilly also claimed that he was on vacation, while in fact Fox was busy cleaning out his desk.

Now that does not mean for certain that Hannity is toast, but then again yes it pretty much does just that even though Fox is claiming he is coming back.

He may indeed return from vacation on Tuesday, but the writing in on the wall. 

Courtesy of the LA Times:

Fox News may be seeing a repeat of advertiser backlash that eventually drove out its former top anchor, Bill O’Reilly. 

At least seven advertisers — Cars.com, Leesa Sleep, Casper, USAA, Peloton, the Crowne Plaza hotel chain and doorbell company Ring — have reportedly asked to be pulled from Sean Hannity’s prime-time program. 

The defections are in response to the host’s promotion of a right-wing theory that Seth Rich, a Democratic National Committee staffer, was slain after providing party emails to WikiLeaks. 

I'll tell you one thing, if Hannity does lose his job this Seth Rich conspiracy theory will be his great white whale, and he will keep flogging that dead horse until he takes his last breath.

Sounds like the perfect end to a despicable career.