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The Washington Times newspaper published a long retraction Sunday afternoon, in which it published a column on the death of Seth Rich, a member of the National Democratic Committee, which would now be "false".
This statement is the latest development of a long-standing conflict between Mr. Rich's family and some conservative commentators who have speculated that there is a connection between Mr. Rich's death and internal emails. of the DNC obtained by WikiLeaks before the 2016 election.
The retraction, which included an apology to the Rich family, consisted of an editorial published in March in which it was said "that he was well known in the intelligence world" that Mr. Rich and his brother, Aaron Rich, "had downloaded emails from the DNC and were paid by WikiLeaks for this information.
"The Washington Times no longer has any reason to believe that part of this statement is true and the Washington Times is retracting it in full," the paper said.
The retraction follows a suit brought by Aaron Rich against the newspaper after the publication of the chronicle. In the lawsuit in federal court in Washington, Mr. Rich argued that the two people he accused of disseminating false information were motivated by "the desire to discredit the allegations that the campaign Trump reportedly colluded with the Russian DNC government and later released DNC documents on WikiLeaks. "
The op-ed was written by James Lyons, who was identified as a retired admiral of the US Navy. Mr. Rich did not sue Mr. Lyons, but cited two other defendants, Fox News frequent guest Ed Butowsky, and Matt Couch, who runs a company called America First Media. Both are accused of publicly propagating false statements.
None of the three could be contacted immediately, but Mr. Butowsky had previously lodged a motion to dismiss, claiming that he had only spoken on the phone with the author, leaving him outside the jurisdiction of the court. Mr. Couch has not yet filed an official response to the trial, depending on the record.
Mr. Rich was shot dead in Washington in July 2016, weeks before WikiLeaks began to disclose thousands of emails from DNC servers. Police in Washington said the murder may have been a botched robbery.
Federal prosecutors have accused Russian intelligence agents of hacking the DNC servers and forwarding stolen emails to WikiLeaks.
In 2017, some commentators, including Fox News host Sean Hannity and the Breitbart News website, speculated that Rich was killed in retaliation for providing sensitive campaign information. Hillary Clinton.
Mr. Rich's parents also filed suit earlier this year, alleging that Fox News intentionally inflicted emotional distress with a 2017 article on the theory that the network later retracted. The retraction of Fox News revealed that the article had not been the subject of an "adequate editorial review". A federal judge in Manhattan dismissed the complaint in August, saying the charges did not meet the high legal bar needed to accuse a media company of intentionally inflicting emotional turmoil. .
The Washington Times' new retraction also implied a separate allegation in the column that asked why the police had not questioned Aaron Rich, suggesting he was obstructing the investigation into Seth Rich's murder.
In the lawsuit, Mr. Rich testified that he gave law enforcement officials access to all of Seth's property and testified before the grand jury investigating the murder of his brother.
In Monday's statement, the newspaper said it "understands that law enforcement officials have questioned Mr. Rich" and that he "was not there." The intention to imply that Mr. Rich had interfered with justice in any way. "
A Rich lawyer, Michael Gottlieb, said Mr. Rich "accepted" the retraction and an apology and that he would dismiss the complaints against the newspaper later this week.
Write to Aruna Viswanatha at [email protected]
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