Former DC Metro Police homicide detective and Fox News contributor, Rod Wheeler joins Jason Goodman in the wake of the dismissal of his defamation lawsuit brought against Fox News. Wheeler’s case was dismissed, together with a separate case brought against Fox by the parents of DNC staffer, Seth Rich. The latter lawsuit claimed that Fox colluded with the White House to propagate a false, politically-biased narrative about the murder of Seth Rich.
On July 2, 2018, Federal Judge George Daniels of New York’s Southern District dismissed the parents’ complaint in its entirety, finding that the suit did not meet the legal requirements to proceed. The parents’ lawyer, Suyash Agrawal says they “look forward to vindicating their rights on appeal.”
Wheeler had been hired by the parents of Seth Rich to investigate the murder of their son when he found himself gagged by their lawsuit, which stemmed in part from statements that he’d made on the air. Wheeler was subsequently fired by Fox.
Now free to speak, Wheeler says his statements were misrepresented by reporter, Marina Marraco from Fox’s local DC affiliate, Fox 5. Further, Wheeler says the subsequent online article published on the Fox News by Malia Zimmerman contained the same misrepresentations from his TV interview that he says originated from Ed Butowsky and that these were politically motivated. Butowsky is also a former Fox contributor and a Republican fundraiser in Texas who had actually paid Wheeler on behalf of the parents to investigate Seth’s murder. Butowsky and Zimmerman were exonerated by the New York Judge’s ruling.
Butowsky has claimed multiple times that Seth’s accomplice in downloading the DNC emails was his brother Aaron Rich, who currently works in cyber security for Northrup Grumman and that the two were in direct contact with WikiLeaks. Wheeler asks why Butowsky never told him that, seeing as he was paying him to investigate the case? When Wheeler recently asked Butowsky this very question, the latter’s response was, “I can’t tell you everything.” The two then discuss Butowsky’s editing of audiotapes that he surreptitiously made of both Wheeler and of journalist Sy Hersh, who did not know he was being recorded and who says the recording was not representative of their conversation.
Aaron Rich has sued Ed Butowsky and Max Couch of America First Radio for their remarks implicating him in the DNC Leak and in yet another lawsuit, former DNC media consultant, Brad Bauman is suing Butowsky and Couch for defamation and injunctive relief.
Of course, proving that Seth Rich, with or without the help of his brother leaked the DNC emails to WikiLeaks would put a nail in the coffin of Robert Mueller’s Special Counsel Investigation into Trump’s “collusion” with Russia, Russian state actors “hacking” the DNC’s server and “meddling” with the 2016 Presidential Election.
In the first half of this interview, the Skype connection suffered from network congestion issues but it gets better and better as the interview progresses. Wheeler says he was getting very close to solving the case when he got pushback from the family and the DC Metro Police but that he doesn’t want to give any details for fear of finding himself in another lawsuit.
“There was one individual, Jason that really concerns me in this investigation. This person knew a little bit too much than they should have known with regards to the death of Seth Rich. I’ve listened to this person on various media channels…and I’ve always said to myself, ‘How did this person know that?’…They really should not have known unless they were involved,” says Wheeler.
Goodman raises his doubts about whether Seth Rich was even murdered, based on the 2017 interview he and George Webb did with him, in which Wheeler stated that there was “No autopsy report, no ballistics, no death certificate…there’s body camera footage that’s gone missing…”
Drawing from his own experience as a former Detective at the DC Metro Police Department, Wheeler explains the bureaucratic process involved with filing a case from the scene to the dispatcher, etc. and why he believes that Seth was indeed murdered, although he has complained from the very beginning that he wasn’t getting the typical responses from the Police Department and he can’t rule out Goodman’s suggestion that a Federal agency was inserted into the police case.
The two discuss the recent press conference put together by Republican activist Jack Burkman radio host, Matt Couch and the new witness to the murder, “Luke” who claims a former DEA agent was hired to kill Seth. Wheeler asks why isn’t the police department and its trained detectives questioning him?
Wheeler says he’s positive that the case can be solved. Many more fascinating details are to be found here. For followers of the Seth Rich murder mystery, this video is a must!
