Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Fast Forward

Seth Rich’s Brother Sues Right-Wing Activists For Spreading Conspiracy Theories

The brother of slain Democratic National Committee staffer Seth Rich filed a lawsuit on Tuesday against conservative activists and media organizations who allegedly spread conspiracy theories about his death, CNN reported.

Seth Rich was shot to death in D.C. last July in what police believed to be a robbery. Right-wing individuals and groups suggested without evidence that Rich had leaked DNC emails to Wikileaks and was killed in response. The theory appealed to some on the far-right as they disputed allegations that Russia hacked the DNC to help the Trump campaign.

Aaron Rich is suing The Washington Times, America First Media and two individuals — businessman Ed Butowsky and activist Matt Couch — for damages to his reputation after they allegedly suggested that he played a role in his brother’s supposed email theft.

Seth Rich’s parents sued Fox News in March for the network’s alleged role in promoting the conspiracy theory.

Contact Haley Cohen at [email protected]

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you move on, I wanted to ask you to support the Forward’s award-winning journalism during our High Holiday Monthly Donor Drive.

If you’ve turned to the Forward in the past 12 months to better understand the world around you, we hope you will support us with a gift now. Your support has a direct impact, giving us the resources we need to report from Israel and around the U.S., across college campuses, and wherever there is news of importance to American Jews.

Make a monthly or one-time gift and support Jewish journalism throughout 5785. The first six months of your monthly gift will be matched for twice the investment in independent Jewish journalism. 

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

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.