{"id":60624,"date":"2018-03-14T05:22:47","date_gmt":"2018-03-14T05:22:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/?p=60624"},"modified":"2018-03-14T05:22:47","modified_gmt":"2018-03-14T05:22:47","slug":"family-slain-dnc-staffer-sues-fox-news-retracted-story","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/news\/family-slain-dnc-staffer-sues-fox-news-retracted-story.html","title":{"rendered":"Family of slain DNC staffer sues Fox News over retracted story"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2 style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-size: 18pt\"><strong><span style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;color: #000000\">Family of slain DNC staffer sues Fox News over retracted story<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/h2>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;color: #000000\">The family of Democratic National Committee staffer Seth Rich, who was killed in 2016, has filed a lawsuit against Fox News, an investigative reporter and one of the network&#8217;s frequent guests over a story about Rich and allegations that he was involved in a conspiracy, according to the lawsuit.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;color: #000000\">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.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;color: #000000\">The May 16, 2017, Fox News article, which allegedly contained &#8220;false and fabricated facts,&#8221; 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.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;color: #000000\">In the suit, which was obtained by ABC News, Rich&#8217;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.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;color: #000000\">The lawsuit claims that Fox News, Zimmerman and Butowsky are liable for the harm caused by the report because they &#8220;aided and abetted the intentional infliction of emotional distress&#8221; caused by the story about Seth Rich and alleges that Fox News provided with a national platform to develop what the lawsuit dubs a &#8220;sham story.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;color: #000000\">The Rich family claims that the \u201cdefendants\u2019 conduct was extreme and outrageous\u201d in what they allege was a deliberate effort to portray Seth Rich as a \u201ccriminal and traitor to the United States.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;color: #000000\">\u201cNo parent should ever have to live through what we have been forced to endure. The pain and anguish that comes from seeing your murdered son\u2019s life and legacy treated as a mere political football is beyond comprehension\u201d Joel and Mary Rich said in a joint statement.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;color: #000000\">Leonard A. Gail of Massey &amp; Gail LLP, a lawyer representing the Riches, said: \u201cJoel and Mary Rich have brought this case to hold Fox News, Fox reporter Zimmerman, and political operative and Fox News contributor Butowsky, accountable for their reprehensible actions. Whether motivated by party politics, ratings, corporate profit, or personal gain, we hope to help prevent this kind of malicious and reckless behavior in the future so that others can be spared the hell the Riches have had to endure.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;color: #000000\">Butowsky called the lawsuit &#8220;one of the dumbest&#8221; he&#8217;d ever seen in an interview with ABC News. \u201cMr. and Mrs. Rich should come forward and be honest with people,\u201d he said, adding that he&#8217;s reached out to them repeatedly to tell what he claims to be the truth.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;color: #000000\">\u201cNobody\u2019s benefited from anything,&#8221; he added. &#8220;To file a lawsuit to say that anybody has benefited just smells weird.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;color: #000000\">Fox News told ABC News it had not seen the complaint yet and therefore would not comment.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;color: #000000\">ABC News has reached out to Zimmerman, but did not immediately hear back.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 8pt\">Source:-\u00a0http:\/\/abcnews.go.com\/Politics\/family-slain-dnc-staffer-sues-fox-news-retracted\/story?id=53725795<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"fb-background-color\">\n\t\t\t  <div \n\t\t\t  \tclass = \"fb-comments\" \n\t\t\t  \tdata-href = \"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/news\/family-slain-dnc-staffer-sues-fox-news-retracted-story.html\"\n\t\t\t  \tdata-numposts = \"10\"\n\t\t\t  \tdata-lazy = \"true\"\n\t\t\t\tdata-colorscheme = \"light\"\n\t\t\t\tdata-order-by = \"social\"\n\t\t\t\tdata-mobile=true>\n\t\t\t  <\/div><\/div>\n\t\t  <style>\n\t\t    .fb-background-color {\n\t\t\t\tbackground: #ffffff !important;\n\t\t\t}\n\t\t\t.fb_iframe_widget_fluid_desktop iframe {\n\t\t\t    width: 630px !important;\n\t\t\t}\n\t\t  <\/style>\n\t\t  ","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Family of slain DNC staffer sues Fox News over retracted story The family of Democratic National Committee staffer Seth Rich, who was killed in 2016, has filed a lawsuit against Fox News, an investigative reporter and one of the network&#8217;s frequent guests over a story about Rich and allegations that [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":60627,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[124481,8436,83545,3244,124480,15501,1878],"class_list":["post-60624","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-conspiracy","tag-democratic-national-committee","tag-dnc","tag-election-news","tag-family-of-slain-dnc-staffer-sues-fox-news-over-retracted-story","tag-fox-news","tag-politics-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60624","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=60624"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60624\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/60627"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=60624"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=60624"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=60624"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}