Suit alleges deceit by Fox News, Trump

Fox denies misquoting plaintiff, letting Oval Office vet now-retracted email story

NEW YORK — A lawsuit filed Tuesday claims that Donald Trump allies, the White House and Fox News Channel conspired to push a false story about Democratic leaks and an unsolved killing in an attempt to distract attention from the Russia investigation that has been swirling around the president.

The lawsuit alleging defamation and racial bias was filed against Fox News by an investigator who had been looking into the killing of Seth Rich, a former Democratic National Committee staff member killed in 2016 in what police say was a botched robbery. The investigator, Rod Wheeler, alleges that Fox News quoted him as saying things he never said and was willing to show the president its story before it was posted online.

It’s the second time in two days that Trump has been accused of being actively involved in pushing a public narrative to lower the heat of the Russia investigation. The Washington Post reported that the president had written a misleading statement for his son to give to The New York Times about Donald Trump Jr.’s meeting last summer with a Russian who promised dirt on Democrat Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign.

Rich’s death has become fodder for conspiracy theorists, angering the 27-yearold’s family. In May, the story was thrust into the headlines again when Fox News posted a story on its website in which Wheeler said there had been contact between Rich and WikiLeaks, the organization that posted thousands of stolen DNC emails last year. The story was heavily promoted by Fox News host Sean Hannity, who has informally advised the president.

In the lawsuit, Wheeler, a former Washington, D.C., homicide detective, now says that he never made that statement. He also contends he was told his false comments were put in the story because Trump wanted it that way.

Wheeler, who is black, also claims in the suit that he has faced discrimination at Fox News because of his race. Wheeler, who is paid a set amount for each appearance he makes on the channel, says that he has received less airtime, money and publicity than his white colleagues.

Fox News said it’s “completely erroneous” to suggest that it pushed the story to distract from the Russia

investigation. Wheeler has made contradictory statements regarding the case and is simultaneously filing a racial discrimination lawsuit against the channel, represented by a lawyer who has other lawsuits against Fox.

White House spokesman Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Trump had no knowledge of the false story before it was posted and that it was “completely untrue” that the White House had any role in shaping it.

Wheeler, a Fox News contributor on law enforcement issues, said he was brought into the Rich case by donor and Trump supporter Ed Butowsky. He said Butowsky, who has also made occasional guest appearances on Fox News, was intent on establishing a link between Rich and WikiLeaks.

Wheeler said that two days before the Fox article was published, he got a text message from Butowsky: “Not to add any more pressure but the president just read the article. He wants the article out immediately. It’s now all up to you. But don’t feel the pressure.”

Butowsky said in a phone interview Tuesday that he has never met Trump and that his text message to Wheeler about the president reading the article was “tongue-in-cheek.”

Fox removed the story from its website a week after it was published, saying “it was not initially subjected to the high degree of editorial scrutiny we require for all of our reporting.” Hannity ultimately backed away, saying he was acting out of respect for Rich’s family.

Wheeler also said he and Butowsky had met with thenWhite House spokesman Sean Spicer and showed Spicer notes on Wheeler’s investigation. Spicer asked to be kept informed, the lawsuit said.

Spicer played down the importance of that meeting.

“Ed is a longtime supporter of the president’s agenda who often appears in the media,” Spicer said Tuesday. “He asked for a 10-minute meeting, with no specified topic, to catch up and said he would be bringing along a contributor to Fox News. As Ed himself has noted, he has never met the president, and the White House had nothing to do with his story.”

On the day the Fox story was posted, Spicer was asked about the report that Rich had emailed WikiLeaks. He said, “I’m not aware of that,” and he did not mention that he had met with Butowsky and Wheeler a month earlier.

One of Trump’s attorneys, Jay Sekulow, also devoted attention to the Rich story during several Hannity appearances in May, before his hiring by Trump was announced.

“There’s a lot more to this, I would suspect,” Sekulow said on the May 18 show, which Hannity devoted almost entirely to a discussion about Rich. “You can’t ignore the fact that it was a DNC staffer. You can’t ignore the fact that there was nothing taken from the individual’s body.”

He said that while he hadn’t seen “the files” on Rich, the incident “undercuts” the argument that Russians interfered in the election.

Trump for months has faced news stories about the investigations into Russian meddling in the 2016 campaign and possible ties between his campaign aides and Moscow. He continues to blast the inquiries as a “witch hunt” aimed at discrediting his election win and tries to focus attention on Clinton, who has largely faded from the headlines.

Fox News President Jay Wallace said, “The accusation that FoxNews.com published Malia Zimmerman’s story to help detract from coverage of the Russia collusion issue is completely erroneous.” Malia Zimmerman was a Fox producer on the story.

“The retraction of this story is still being investigated internally and we have no evidence that Rod Wheeler was misquoted by Zimmerman,” Wallace said.

Fox News also denied the racial discrimination claims in the suit.

In May, Wheeler told Fox’s affiliate in Washington that he “absolutely” had sources at the FBI saying there was information that could link Rich to WikiLeaks. But the station noted that Wheeler subsequently said contradictory things to other news organizations, and the station could not contact him again.

Trump has fostered a close relationship with Fox and many of its personalities, particularly Hannity. Hannity gave Trump a frequent platform for non-challenging interviews during the campaign.

Information for this article was contributed by Donna Cassata and Shelley Acoca of The Associated Press and Emily Steel of The New York Times.