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In another era, this would have been Big News this week.
In this era of 24/7 News Agenda-setting by Twitter, this next story barely registered blimp ...
Heard on
Morning Edition, NPR —
July 11, 2019 [Audio of Interview, in above link.]
[...]
ISIKOFF: Well, there were questions about the circumstances of Seth Rich's death that some people raised early on — the fact that nothing was taken from his body, his wallet, his credit cards, his personal effects. And when you talk to experts, they will tell you that this is not that uncommon when somebody like Seth Rich resisted as he did. But what we found was that, within three days of that murder, a conspiracy theory pops up on an obscure website called whatdoesitmean.com alleging that Rich was on his way to talk to the FBI about corruption by the Clintons when he was gunned down by a squad of assassins working for Hillary Clinton.
It turns out that that very same day that that report popped up on this obscure website, the Russian SVR — that's its version of the CIA — circulated a intelligence bulletin making those exact same claims about Seth Rich. So in short, it was the SVR, the Russian intelligence agency, that planted the conspiracy theory about Seth Rich from the get-go.
[...]
ISIKOFF: It was certainly part of the Russian disinformation operation during the 2016 election. And I should point out, it wasn't just those bulletins from the SVR; what we found is that RT and Sputnik, the Russian government-owned TV stations and radio stations, ramped up the story, broadcast multiple stories about Seth Rich. And most importantly, the Internet Research Agency — that's that shadowy outfit, the troll farm in St. Petersburg that was actively involved in the manipulation of social media during the 2016 campaign — they were tweeting and retweeting about Seth Rich relentlessly, more than 2,000 times by our count.
INSKEEP: How huge was this fake story during 2016 on conservative media?
ISIKOFF: It was big in 2016; it even got bigger in 2017 because, as the Russia story was heating up [...]
INSKEEP: And when you say it's completely debunked, is it correct that even Fox News now acknowledges it's got no evidence of that story?
ISIKOFF: Yes, Fox News retracted the story within eight days. The Washington police department denied it. The FBI denied it. Deborah Sines, the prosecutor in charge of this case, says it was a complete fabrication. [...]
Funny, at the time I had Independent coworkers in my workplace, trying to convince me of the validity of this Russian-planted fiction. They were not alone ...
Seth Rich Conspiracy Theory Was Planted by Russian Intel Before Being Championed by Fox News' Sean Hannity: Report
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Sean Hannity touted the story on his popular evening program, saying it "might expose the single biggest fraud, lies, perpetrated on the American people by the media and the Democrats in our history." He argued: "If Seth was Wiki source, no Trump/Russia collusion."
[...]
Former GOP member of Congress Newt Gingrich, who contributes regularly to Newsweek and Fox News, also trumpeted the claims in an appearance on the network. "We have this very strange story now of this young man who worked for the Democratic National Committee, who apparently was assassinated at 4 in the morning, having given WikiLeaks something like 53,000 emails and 17,000 attachments."
But Fox News later pulled the story, as the key sources for the story collapsed. The Rich family is currently pursuing a lawsuit against the network for defamation of their deceased son.
[...]
Even though this fake-news story collapsed — the circulating rumors about it didn’t.
The real venom behind such Russian handiwork is, given the divisiveness they’d already fostered, it is quite easy for them to plant such a run-away rumor. And it’s quiet hard for anyone else to ‘correct the record’ after the fact, once the Conspiracy-mill has gotten a hold of it. And is churning away ...
It’s kind of like wild-fire that way:
“A lie can travel halfway around the world, while the truth is putting on its shoes.”
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