Seth Rich in an undated photograph. Image by GoFundMe

By Ari Feldman March 5, 2019

A pro-Trump conspiracy theorist who had amplified the conspiracy theories around the murder of Seth Rich, the Jewish Democratic National Committee staffer, apologized to Rich’s family, RollingStone.com reported.

On Monday, the website InfoWars.com, which is run by the conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, retracted a column by one of its “correspondents,” Jeremy Corsi, and issued a formal apology to Rich’s family. Corsi’s column had claimed that Rich and his brother had helped leak emails from the DNC to Wikileaks, and was subsequently murdered by people loyal to Hillary Clinton.

The apology states that Corsi’s “allegations were not based upon any independent factual knowledge regarding Seth or Aaron Rich.” The article retracted was meant to defend pro-Trump operative Roger Stone against evidence that he knew in advance that Wikileaks had obtained the DNC emails.

Forwarding the News

Thoughtful, balanced reporting from the Forward and around the web, bringing you updated news and analysis each day.

Terms(Required)

I agree to the Forward's Terms of Service and Privacy Policy

Email(Required)

The Rich family has successfully sued news organizations for defamation following their publication of conspiracy theories about Rich’s murder. The family sued Fox News in March 2018, and sued the Washington Times, the outlet that originally published the statement upon which Corsi’s conspiracy article was based. (The Times’ retracted that article in September 2018.)

In a statement, Aaron Rich said, “I acknowledge the apology of Dr. Jerome Corsi for his false accusations about me, my late brother and my family, and I look forward to my day in court against others who have made similar false statements.”

Ari Feldman is a staff writer at the Forward. Contact him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter @aefeldman

The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.

Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.

Readers like you make it all possible. We’ve started our Passover Fundraising Drive, and we need 1,800 readers like you to step up to support the Forward by April 21. Members of the Forward board are even matching the first 1,000 gifts, up to $70,000.

This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism, because every dollar goes twice as far.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

2X match on all Passover gifts!

$90 → $180 $180 → $360

$360 → $720

Other amount