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By Aiden Pink May 23, 2017

Fox News Channel announced on Tuesday that they were retracting a report on Seth Rich, a former Democratic National Committee staffer whose violent death last year has become the subject of conspiracy theories.

Fox News published a report on their website on May 16 citing an investigator who claimed that Rich, who was killed in Washington, D.C. in what local police suspect to be a botched robbery, had been sharing information with WikiLeaks, raising the theory that his death was some sort of retribution for harming the Hillary Clinton presidential campaign.

This theory has been refuted by his family, and police investigations have not uncovered any evidence that Rich had communicated with WikiLeaks or that his death was somehow connected to Clinton or the DNC hacking.

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Fox stated that its article “was not initially subjected to the high degree of editorial scrutiny we require for all our reporting. Upon appropriate review, the article was found not to meet those standards and has since been removed. We will continue to investigate this story and will provide updates as warranted.” The report is no longer accessible on the channel’s website.

Theories about Rich have been promoted on Fox News by hosts Sean Hannity and Geraldo Rivera and frequent guest Newt Gingrich. CNN reported Monday that Fox News staffers were “disgusted” by how the channel had promoted conspiracy theories about Rich.

Contact Aiden Pink at [email protected] or on Twitter, @aidenpink.

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