Was Russia Behind Mystery Murder Of DNC Worker Seth Rich?

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By Nathan Guttman March 1, 2017

When Republican lobbyist and lawyer Jack Burkaman volunteered to take on the unsolved murder case of Jewish Democratic National Committee staffer Seth Rich, he believed there was “no political dimension” to the case and no basis for conspiracy theories about the puzzling slaying.

But eight months after 27-years old Rich was gunned down in what cops called a botched robbery near his home in Washington, Burkman says he has a lead. And it is quite conspiratorial.

Burkman is calling on Congress to investigate the possibility that Russia was involved in the murder of the young staffer.

In an interview with the Daily Mail the Republican lawyer said he was a approached by a former U.S. intelligence officer who “has claimed that it [the murder] was arranged by the Russian government at a very high level.”

Rich had worked on voter database systems for the Democratic Party and was about to join the Clinton campaign. Theories floated after his death, including by Wikileaks founder Julian Assange and by former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, tried to tie his murder with the leak of Clinton-related emails from the DNC.

Contact Nathan Guttman at guttman@forward.com

Nathan Guttman, staff writer, was the Forward’s Washington bureau chief. He joined the staff in 2006 after serving for five years as Washington correspondent for the Israeli dailies Haaretz and The Jerusalem Post. In Israel, he was the features editor for Ha’aretz and chief editor of Channel 1 TV evening news. He was born in Canada and grew up in Israel. He is a graduate of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

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