Gingrich spreads conspiracy theory about slain DNC staffer
Former House speaker Newt Gingrich, a stalwart supporter of President Trump, used a Sunday-morning appearance on “Fox and Friends” to spread the conspiracy theory that former Democratic National Committee staffer Seth Rich was killed last year to cover up the true story of how WikiLeaks obtained tens of thousands of hacked Democratic Party emails.
“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,” Gingrich said.
“Nobody’s investigating that, and what does that tell you about what’s going on? Because it turns out, it wasn’t the Russians. It was this young guy who, I suspect, was disgusted by the corruption of the Democratic National Committee. He’s been killed, and apparently nothing serious has been done to investigative his murder.
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With no pushback from the Fox hosts, Gingrich shared innuendos that got new life last week after Rod Wheeler, an occasional contributor to Fox News whom a conservative donor had paid to probe Rich’s death, told local Fox affiliate WTTG 5 that he had new evidence. On Monday,
Wheeler claimed to have sources at either the FBI or the D.C. police department who apparently knew that evidence existed of Rich — who was fatally shot in July — contacting WikiLeaks but that an unnamed person had told investigators to “stand down.”
By Thursday, after follow-up questioning from CNN and NBC News, Wheeler had largely recanted his story, and Rich’s family had rejected Wheeler’s most explosive claim — that Rich’s laptop was in police custody. But Friday, and over the weekend, Fox News host Sean Hannity continued to suggest that Rich was killed in a cover-up.
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