FOX NEWS SEEKS DISMISSAL OF SETH RICH-RELATED SUIT
Says it didn’t defame analyst Rod Wheeler, who filed the case
Fox News has asked a federal court to dismiss a lawsuit filed by a longtime commentator who alleged the network and a supporter of President Trump embellished a story about Democratic National Committee staffer Seth Rich and his connection to WikiLeaks and leaks of DNC emails.
Filed Monday in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, Fox News seeks dismissal of a case filed by Rod Wheeler, who has appeared on Fox News as a paid law enforcement and crime analyst, arguing that he was not defamed and that the situation should be handled by an arbitrator.
Rich, 27, was shot to death July 10, 2016, in a random robbery attempt, according to Washington, D.C., police. No arrests have been made in the case.
Conspiracy theories arose when a month later, WikiLeaks released a trove of DNC emails and WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange suggested Rich might have been the source of the data, not the Russians.
Wheeler, in his suit filed in August, alleged that a Fox story published in May improperly used his comments to suggest a connection between Rich’s death, Wikileaks and email leaks.
Fox later removed the controversial story, saying it “was not initially subjected to the high degree of editorial scrutiny we require for all our reporting.”
But Fox News, in its latest filing, challenges Wheeler’s argument, alleging he made “substantially the same statements” in interviews before and after the report and said “the article he now says is false ‘was essentially correct and worthy of further investigation.’ ”
Wheeler “was neither misquoted nor defamed,” Fox News said in its motion. And it argues that his employment discrimination claim falls short because it alleges “in only vague and conclusory terms that Fox News did not give him the same employment opportunities as other contributors. Wheeler fails to plead the facts necessary to support such a charge, because there are no such facts,” the motion says.
Wheeler’s case should also not proceed, Fox News says, because any claims he has should be handled by arbitration, according to his agreement with the network.
Douglas Wigdor, a New York attorney representing Wheeler, said Fox wants to keep “people in the dark on what now is a matter of serious public concern,” he said in a statement to USA TODAY.
“We are confident that our client will ultimately be vindicated in a public court of law that will expose how Fox ... created fake news in an attempt at diverting attention away from the Russian hacking scandal.”
Ed Butowsky, a Dallas financial adviser and unpaid Fox News and Fox Business Network guest, also filed a motion asking the court to dismiss the case. Butowsky had hired Wheeler on behalf of the Rich family to investigate their son’s death. Wheeler had alleged that Butowsky and Fox News investigative journalist Malia Zimmerman had assisted in the embellishment of the story to advance “a political agenda for the Trump administration.”
In his filing, Butowsky says despite all of the “attention-grabbing details” in Wheeler’s suit, “the complaint fails to plausibly allege even the most basic elements of defamation. ... While (Wheeler) may regret his decision to become involved in the investigation and media debate surrounding the murder of DNC staffer Seth Rich due to the resulting negative media attention, his case is one in search of a viable legal theory.”