Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Fast Forward

Donna Brazile Says Seth Rich Murder Made Her ‘Fear For Her Life’

Donna Brazile, the former chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee, writes that she “feared for her life” after the killing of Seth Rich, the murdered DNC staffer, in June 2016. According to excerpts published by the Washington Post, Brazile began shutting the blinds of her office to thwart snipers and installed a security system in her private home.

Brazile also says she was worried that Russian spies had placed a bug in the DNC executive offices.

One of the central theories about Seth Rich’s killing — which remains unsolved — is that it was carried out on behalf of Hillary Clinton, on the basis that Rich had leaked the DNC’s emails to Wikileaks. Many conspiracy theorists believe that Clinton and former president Bill Clinton are responsible for a string of murders going back to the beginning of their political careers.

Intelligence analysts agree almost unanimously, however, that Russia hacked the DNC’s servers and provided the emails to Wikileaks, perhaps through an intermediary.

After the excerpts from Brazile’s book were published, conservative media outlets latched onto the story. The Gateway Pundit — a blog that often features conspiracies — published a story called “Why Would Donna Brazile Be in Fear For Her Life if Seth Rich’s Death Was Just a Random Late Night Mugging?”

Roger Stone, a one-time campaign adviser to Donald Trump and a major conspiracist, spoke on the Alex Jones show about the repercussions of Brazile’s statement.

Conservative activists and pundits took to Twitter to trumpet Brazile’s words.

On Saturday, Clinton’s 2016 campaign staff posted open letter to Brazile on Medium accusing Brazile of believing Russian propaganda. The letter was signed by dozens of former Clinton staffers, including Huma Abedin and John Podesta.

It is “troubling and puzzling that she would seemingly buy into false Russian-fueled propaganda, spread by both the Russians and our opponent, about our candidate’s health,” the letter wrote.

On Sunday on ABC, Brazile fired back at the Clinton camp, telling them to “go to hell.”

“For those who are telling me to shut up — they told Hillary [Clinton] that a couple of months ago — you know what I tell them? ‘Go to hell,’” Brazile said. “I’m going to tell my story.”

Contact Ari Feldman at [email protected] or on Twitter @aefeldman.

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.

If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

With your support, we’ll be ready for whatever 2025 brings.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.