Gingrich spreads conspiracy theory about slain DNC staffer

[riversedge]

Source: washpost





By David Weigel May 21 at 11:13 AM


Former House speaker Newt Gingrich, a stalwart supporter of President Trump, used a Sunday-morning appearance on “Fox and Friends” to spread the conspiracy theory that former Democratic National Committee staffer Seth Rich was killed last year to cover up the true story of how WikiLeaks obtained tens of thousands of hacked Democratic Party emails.

“We have this very strange story now of this young man who worked for the Democratic National Committee, who apparently was assassinated at 4 in the morning, having given WikiLeaks something like 53,000 emails and 17,000 attachments,” Gingrich said.
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.....................Like Hannity, Gingrich confidently made claims about Rich that have not been proven and that the family has denied. Police have investigated Rich’s killing, which remains one of many unsolved murder cases in the city. There is no evidence that he was “disgusted by the corruption of the Democratic National Committee,” though last week, amateur sleuths falsely claimed that Rich had posted online as “pandas4bernie.” (He may have tweeted as “panda4progress.”)

There’s also no evidence that Rich contacted WikiLeaks. Until this week, conspiracy theorists had suggested that the hacker Guccifer 2.0 used Rich to get into DNC servers, based on possibly altered direct messages between Guccifer 2.0 and a model named Robbin Young. The new theories, which were covered on Fox News even as the source recanted, rely not on criminal evidence but on the fact that WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange offered a reward for information about Rich’s killing and gave a meandering non-answer when asked whether Rich was his source...............................



Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/wp/2017/05/21/gingrich-spreads-conspiracy-theory-about-slain-dnc-staffer/?utm_term=.1653fb8e4398

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WTF!! Last week I read someplace that the family had sent Fox news a letter telling them to please lay off this story.. But leave it to fox to continue to hurt the family



.....................................
Seth Masket?Verified account @smotus


Right. This isn't Newt in decline. This is who he's always been.

Seth Masket added,
Brendan NyhanVerified account @BrendanNyhan
Flashback: "Gingrich said yesterday he's not sure Vincent Foster really committed suicide ... first mainstream politician to raise doubts"

Link to tweet

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12:00 PM - 21 May 2017

Link to tweet

Link to tweet

[riversedge]

1. Great comment from this OP story.......

.............“At this point, only people with transparent political agendas or sociopaths are still perpetuating Seth Rich conspiracies and in Newt Gingrich we find both,” said Bauman. He can never know the deep pain he has caused the Rich family, and I hope he is held accountable either in this world or the next.”.................

[Scarsdale]

2. Calista Gingrich

is supposed to be the ambassador to the Vatican. Why is her husband spreading lies like this? Does the Pope know about her adulterous past? Gingrich is a fat, sloppy loser who should be ashamed to show his ugly mug on TV, after being forced out of the government. Pompous know it all who actually knows very little.

[riversedge]

14. Fox and friends will have any slimeball on their show to spread lies.

[Cicada]

3. Gingrich and Roger Ailes have done the most harm to America ever

They have been the two worst in damaging our political system. Those two are the perfect examples of what George Orwell warned us about. Gingrich is smart and knows the Seth Rich story is fake news. But he has zero interest in saying the truth. All he cares about is manipulating voters to vote as he wants. He is evil.

[jmowreader]

4. Hmm...

The DU hack threw a "Seth Rich died for you" notice on the screen.

[riversedge]

15. ????

[dchill]

17. Yep, I saw it and a post about it...

right before the site went down.

[riversedge]

24. Thanks.

I did not know that the conspiracy theory of Seth was part of the shutdown.

[jmowreader]

21. A few days ago there was a huge DU outage caused by malware

This hack did one of two things: redirected the directory link to a post to a page that had the words "Seth Rich died for you," or added a video that claimed the DNC murdered Seth Rich to someone's post. Totally weird shit, and DU's circuit-breaker routine managed to catch it and shut down the boards before the malware was able to do a ton of damage.

[riversedge]

23. Oh. OK. I did not know that

"redirected the directory link to a post to a page that had the words "Seth Rich died for you," or added a video that claimed the DNC murdered Seth Rich to someone's post."

Whow. Thanks for the information.

[IronLionZion]

5. Bloomingdale is a rough neighborhood during the day, let along 4AM

there are good values for housing but it could have totally been a random mugging and have nothing to do with any conspiracy.

I looked for housing there but my realtor convinced me against it saying it would be guaranteed to have break ins and crime.

The Seth Rich conspiracy shows how fake news still works https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2017/05/20/the-seth-rich-conspiracy-shows-how-fake-news-still-works/

on edit: I guess RNC staffers tend to live in more expensive neighborhoods than DNC

[StevieM]

6. They are exploiting his death like the way they exploited the deaths in Benghazi.

They perpetuated absurd conspiracy theories about that as well.

They are Republicans. This is what they do.

[mr_lebowski]

7. Given what we actually know right now, I'd FAR SOONER suspect Putin's goons offed Rich ..

... because he was threatening to EXPOSE their election hacking ... than I would suspect 'the DNC' got rid of the guy as retribution for purposefully giving info to WikiLeaks ...

Putin's enemies are dying under suspicious circumstances left and right FFS.

Whereas "people the DNC has reason to not like?"

Not so much.

Anyways, I'm perfectly fine with Mueller taking up 'what happened to this young man' as part of his TrumpRussia investigation. Let the chips fall where they may. Family deserves an answer.

[geek tragedy]

8. "the intersection of immoral, paranoid and dumb"

https://mobile.twitter.com/JohnJHarwood/status/866266996748546048

[Bernardo de La Paz]

9. Gingrich has corruptly sold his soul. . . . nt

[dchill]

18. A LONG time ago.

[IthinkThereforeIAM]

19. +1...

...eom.

[Wellstone ruled]

10. Caught a couple Letters to the Editor in the local

Right Wing so called Newspaper in recent days. Sure looks like the Wingers are going to amp up the there Hillary E-Mail crap once again in a effort to save the Rethug Party from total disaster. Newt and his Pals are Tell's when it comes to Rethug game plans.

[underpants]

11. Yeah, your wife got the position not you

Must be tough.

[dalton99a]

22. +1

[Kingofalldems]

12. The hallmark of conservatism is dishonesty.

I don't know of one honest conservative.

[Mr. Ected]

13. The ball is in Congress' court, and that Congress is comprised of Republicans

If there was enough there to merit an investigation, it would have already been initiated. At this juncture, there is no way in hell they'd try that...with Trump campaign and administration players having been exposed with REAL evidence in a very REAL conspiracy to throw an election.

Where is the proof, Newt? Where's the beef?

[SergeStorms]

16. Asshole Newt...

"apparently"......."I suspect"....."apparently"..... Is there ANYTHING you know for CERTAIN, NEWT? THEN SHUT THE HELL UP!

All of this "some people say", and "I suspect" bullshit pisses me the hell off. Gingrich has always been, and remains, one of the biggest reich-wing hypocrites on the planet.

[Nitram]

20. Interesting to see how low "Professor" Gingrich has fallen.

He's a has-been has-been.