From Conservapedia

Seth Conrad Rich (January 3, 1989 – July 10, 2016) of the DNC, was shot in the Bloomingdale neighborhood of Washington, D.C. on July 10, 2017, at 4:19:43. He was transported to a hospital and pronounced dead at 5:57 AM after emergency surgery.[1]

Personal background

DNC worker Seth Rich was born on January 3, 1989, to parents Joel and Mary Rich,[2] and murdered 27 years later on Sunday, July 10, 2016, around 4:19 AM in the Bloomingdale neighborhood near his home, shot at 2134 Flagler Pl NW, Washington DC 20001[3] at the Southwest corner of Flagler and W Street [4] in Northwest Washington DC[5] across from the Flagler Market which faces W Street.[6] It has been reported that the police were on the scene by 4:20 AM.[7] According to the police report, Rich was approached by two individuals.[8] According to Mary Rich, near the time of the murder, he had been engaged in conversation on the phone with his girlfriend when she heard some noise coming from Rich's phone. Rich told his girlfriend not to worry about it. Mary Rich concluded that "there had been a struggle" and that his hands, face, and knees were bruised.[9] Reportedly, detectives said that Seth had bruises on his face and knuckles.[10] Joel Rich reported that Seth's watchband was torn.[11] The particular intersection where Rich was killed has been rated on a Crime Risk scale (ranging on a spectrum from red as less safe to green as safer) as a "yellow" area, a little to the right of center, on the safer side of the scale.[12] Fox News has provided a video of a "Walk Through the Crime Scene."[13]

Rich was survived by an older brother named Aaron.[14] Rich had been raised in Omaha, Nebraska, belonging to a family said to be "a pillar of the Jewish community in Omaha." His father had been sometime president of the Beth El Synagogue, of which his grandfather had been a founding member.[15] He had been a student at the Friedel Jewish Academy and Central High School. Later while a student at Creighton University, he had worked with the US Census Bureau as well as the Nebraska Democratic Party, interning for Senator Ben Nelson. After graduating from Creighton in 2011,[16] Rich had obtained employment by Greenberg Quinlan Rosner (a polling company) and relocated to Washington, DC. In Washington DC, Rich found employment for two years with the Democratic National Committee (DNC), where he developed a computer program that let people find their polling places by entering their names. By the time that he died, Rich had become Deputy Director of Data-for-Voter Protection/Expansion at the DNC.[17]

Murdered in DC

There in Washington DC, within about one minute after speaking on his cell phone with his sometime girlfriend, Kelsey Mulka, Seth Rich was shot.[19] "He was talking on the phone with his girlfriend when she heard noise on Rich's end of the line, Mary Rich said. Her son told his girlfriend not to worry about it."[20] The Washington Post published a record of Seth's cell phone calls that night (including early July 10, 2017):

Before Closing Time at Lou's Bar: Seth made 3 calls: 1) & 2) to Joel Rich (unanswered). 3) to a friend lasting 1 minute. At Closing Time at Lou's Bar: 4) 1:21-1:33 Another friend called Seth, 12 minute call. After Closing Time 5) 2:05-3:34 Seth called Kelsey Mulka, his girlfriend, who was in Michigan. They conversed for 89 minutes. Then the call was disconnected. 6) 3:36-4:19 (approx) Seth called Kelsey again, and they conversed for 43 minutes. At about 4:19 a.m., Rich told Kelsey that he was nearly home and said, 'I gotta go,' according to Joel Rich (Seth's father), who has talked with Kelsey . . . ."[21]

This time log indicates that immediately or almost immediately after ending that call, he was in a fight, then quickly shot from behind, all possibly in less than 1 minute after call ended; then in about 1 minute after the shots police were on scene at 4:20.[22] Although there was a report that Seth had been shot twice in the head ,[23] he was evidently shot in the torso.[24] It has been theorized that the motive was a robbery, but neither his wallet nor his watch were taken, causing doubt that the motive was robbery.[25] The (tabloid style) Daily Mail Online says that the coroner's office confirmed the cause of death as gunshots to the torso.[26] Fox 5 reports that a witness near the scene, Mark Mueller, heard the shots and went to the scene. Mueller says, "He was conscious, & I saw him moving his hand, and uh then they carried him past me to the ambulance. I had to look at him to see if he was anybody that we knew from the neighborhood"﻿.[27] Consistent with Mueller, Seth's mother reports that he was alive and talking when the police arrived (about a minute later). This report with the lack of a head shot (and evidence of a fight), requires explanation if one entertains the hypothesis of a political assassination.

The Daily Mail also claims that prior to his death Rich had been at Lou's City Bar until around 1:45 AM where he was inebriated, but refused the offer of a ride home.[28] It is a walk of about 1.7 miles from Lou's City Bar to the corner where Rich was shot at about 4:19 AM with Rich's activities between 1:45 and 4:19 still under investigation as of August 18, 2016.[29] In contrast with the inebriation claims of the Daily Mail, witnesses at Lou's City Bar said that Rich had a couple drinks, which would likely have lost much of their effect in two hours. The general manager of Lou's bar stated that Rich was a "couple-of beers kind of guy," and that "despondent and drunk" was "just not Seth. I never saw him drunk or even tipsy."[30]

The walk home time has been estimated at 30 minutes, but whether or not Rich went to a second bar before heading towards home (2113 First St NW, DC 20001), remains to be shown. The Washington Post claims, ". . . a person who spoke to him that night and agreed to be interviewed on the condition of anonymity said he did not go [to the Wonderland Ballroom bar] . . . ."[31] Fox News has presented a video of Lou's bar and the neighborhood of that bar, also of the nearby Wonderland Ballroom bar, and what the possible walk-for-home route looks like.[32] (Sales and service of liquor Saturday-Sunday is limited to no later than 3 AM in Washington DC, by law.[33] The Wonderland Ballroom bar closed at 3 AM early Sunday morning if it was following the schedule posted on internet on August 21, 2016.)[34]

The police were aided in finding the location of the shooting by an auditory system in Washington DC called ShotSpotter.[35] Rich was yet conscious and breathing when the police found him. World News Daily reported that Vito Maggiolo (EMS public information officer) stated that Seth was transported to a hospital in Priority 1 condition (critical) in an ambulance ride of 6 minutes and 40 seconds.[36] But after emergency surgery, he was pronounced dead at 5:57 AM.[37] It has been reported that Rich's "favorite spot" was Lou's City Bar, where the bar put a plaque at his usual seat, either temporarily or permanently.[38]

On July 22 three days before the presidential Democrat convention, WikiLeaks released a multitude of emails from "the top of" the Democratic National Committee (DNC),[39] emails which indicated that members of the DNC had given favorable treatment to Hillary Clinton over Bernie Sanders in the Democratic presidential primary of 2016. After the Democratic primary, the leader of Wikileaks was interviewed by a Dutch television man; in that interview Julian Assange spoke about the dangers to their sources (whistle-blowers) who give information to WikiLeaks.

Rewards for information on the murder

At about the same time, Assange offered a reward of $20,000 for information concerning the murder of Seth Rich. But Assange did not directly assert that Seth Rich was the source of the email leaks, though he gave three very slight nods after being asked about Rich as the source. This $20,000 reward followed the reward of $25,000 offered by the Washington DC police.[40] These offers were followed in September, 2016, by a reward offer of $100,000 by Republican lobbyist Jack Burkman. [41]

Another reward was apparently offered back in August, 2016, at a site called WeSearchR which claimed to be collecting reward money.[42] As of 7 PM, August 18, 2016, WeSearchR claimed to have raised $20,040 to add to the police and Wikileaks reward. $20,000 of that sum was credited to Mike Cernovich.[43] However, the WeSearchR site had a disclaimer which may indicate that this reward collection was a joke or a scam.

Statements by Assange

Certain statements by Assange open the possibility that Seth Rich was a source (or a believed source) for Wikileaks.

1) "It’s, I think, interesting and acceptable to speculate who our sources are. But if we’re talking about the DNC, there’s lots of consultants that have access, lots of programmers."[44]

2) Julian Assange was interviewed for the Dutch television program Nieuwsuur by Twan Huys. Selected statements, (excerpts from a longer interview) in chronological order (omitting vocal pauses) are quoted below. A = Julian Assange; H = Twan Huys.

A: "We have a lot of material related to the . . . DNC." A: "We never discuss sources ruling them out, ruling them in, . . . ."

H: " . . . , does it matter that the source of these emails . . . is most likely from . . . , Russia . . . ?" A: "Well, that's false."

A: “Whistleblowers go to significant efforts to get us material and often very significant risks. As a 27-year-old, works for the DNC, was shot in the back, murdered just a few weeks ago for unknown reasons as he was walking down the street in Washington, . . . .”

H: “That was just a robbery, I believe. Wasn’t it?” A: “No." "There’s no finding … I’m suggesting that our sources take risks.”

H: "But was he one of your sources then?" A: "We don't comment on who our sources are."[45]

H: “Then why make the suggestion about a young guy being shot in the streets of Washington?” A: “Because we have to understand how high the stakes are in the United States, and that our sources face serious risks. That’s why they come to us. So we can protect their anonymity.”

H: ". . . to suggest a murder, that's basically what you are doing." A: ". . . others have suggested that. We are investigating . . . with Seth Rich. . . . there's not a conclusion yet." A: "We are concerned about it, and more importantly, a variety of WikiLeaks sources are concerned when that kind of thing happens."

Soon after that interview on Twitter Wikileaks posted "a $20,000 reward for information leading to conviction for the murder of DNC staffer Seth Rich."[46]

3) If the theory that it was a Russian hack which was the source the Wikileaks DNA emails, were confirmed, that might be used as an argument to discount Seth Rich as a Wikileaks source. However, in addition to Assange's direct denial of a Russian source, Assange argued against the Russian hack theory saying:

"Russia has been brought up . . . ." "There are claims that in the metadata (a digital trail of any changes made to a file) someone’s done a document to PDF conversion, and . . . , in some cases the language of the computer that was used for that conversion was Russian. "So . . . [that would be] circumstantial evidence that some Russian was involved or someone who wanted to make it look like a Russian was involved." "That’s not the case for the material that we released."[47]

Wikipedia bias

As of August 15, 2016, the article in En.wikipedia ("Murder of Seth Rich") had a motion to delete template on it, delete on grounds of not being notable, although at one point it was getting 1500 daily views. It was so allegedly unnotable that a strong debate was generated there on the talk page and on the Delete Articles section, where editors essentially "voted" to Keep vs. Delete, allegedly on the grounds of non-notability.[48] Among the arguments for deleting the article there was a repetitious reference to the talking point "conspiracy theory," though the article said nothing at all about a conspiracy theory. Also, as of August 17, 2016, the Wiki editor who started this article, was officially blocked by an administrator. His talk page said: "You have been blocked indefinitely from editing because it appears that you are not here to build an encyclopedia."[49] As of August 21, 2016, the motion to delete was denied on grounds of no consensus, although a derogatory false comment was attached attacking some of those who argued in favor of "Keep." Soon after, the article was summarily locked down until August 27, 2016, and a request for mediation was filed.

Despite the fact that the article was not deleted, several details about the murder were deleted from the article by the same editors who advocated for deletion,[50] leaving the article a rather short stub article. And as of August 24, 2016, there was a continuing debate and vote on the talk page of that article as to "Should this article mention the fact that WikiLeaks offered $20,000 in reward money for providing information regarding the perpetrator of this crime?" along with this template warning: "Template:Ds/talk notice," which warned: "This article is subject to discretionary sanctions."

On September 18, 2016, less than a month after the previous motion to delete failed, a second motion to delete was started by the same editors who tried to delete it the first time, but once again, on October 4, the motion to delete was denied, as there was "no consensus."[51]

Later reports

In May 2017, Fox News Channel reported that the FBI knew Seth Rich had made contact with WikiLeaks.[52] The liberal mainstream media have chosen not to cover this report, which was uncovered by Fox News.[53] The White House declined to comment on the revelations.[54] Rich's family and the D.C. police denied confirmation of reports.[55] Several questions, according to some news outlets, remained unanswered up to that time.[56] Fox News retracted the report several days later.[57] Conservative commentator on Fox News, Sean Hannity, did not retract anything he stated, noting the fact that liberals and Democrats themselves widely accepted and circulated conspiracy theories, most notably those regarding alleged Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.[58] Because of Hannity's decision, liberal advertisers chose to pressure and bully him by pulling out their ads from his show.[59]

See also