In the wake of the bombshell lawsuit filed by Fox News contributor Rod Wheeler alleging Fox News and the White House coordinated a fake news report on slain DNC staffer Seth Rich, claiming he was in contact with WikiLeaks before his murder, Republican donor Ed Butowsky appeared on CNN for an absolutely bonkers interview.

Butowsky, who hired Wheeler to investigate Rich’s murder and is named in the lawsuit, showed up this evening to answer many of the claims made by Wheeler. And for more than 20 minutes, he and anchor Chris Cuomo — filling in for Don Lemon — engaged in a largely contentious and heated exchange.

Right off the bat, Butowsky disputed Wheeler’s allegations that he coordinated with the White House on the Fox News story, stating that Wheeler is “dead broke” and that the private investigator wanted a job with the Trump administration. He also said the voice mails and emails where he mentioned the White House had to do with a DC detective.

This went on for seemingly forever, with Cuomo attempting to get a straight answer out of Butowsky — to no avail — before moving on to the meeting with then-White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer described in the suit. This led to Butowsky talking about how he and Spicer talked about shirts more than the Seth Rich story.

Cuomo also brought up the Fox News story that was eventually retracted. Well, according to Butowsky, the only reason the report was retracted was that Wheeler had a crush on an anchor and leaked the details beforehand and that is why Wheeler’s claiming he was misquoted.

Eventually, the two tussled over Butowsky contacting the Rich family about investigating their son’s murder. After Butowsky said he heard something from someone, Cuomo pressed him on what it was.

“I’m not going to tell you,” Butowsky declared. “That’s not something I’m going to share with you.”

When Cuomo tried to get Butowsky to reveal what he was told and by whom, the GOP donor shot back that he was told by a CNN producer that he’d be allowed to talk.

“You’ve been talking plenty, Ed,” Cuomo shot back.

The two would also go at it over whether or not Butowsky was even a Trump supporter, as Butowsky said that he never donated money to the president and preferred to label himself a Republican.

Watch the clips above, via CNN.

[image via screengrab]

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Follow Justin Baragona on Twitter: @justinbaragona

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