FILE In this Monday, Nov. 23, 2015, file photo, Republican presidential candidate, businessman Donald Trump speaks during a rally at the Greater Columbus Convention Center in Columbus, Ohio. Israel's prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday, Dec. 9, 2015, rejected Trump's recent statements about Muslims, saying Israel respects all religions as he faced calls to call off an upcoming visit by the Republican front-runner. (AP Photo/Paul Vernon, File)
The murder of Democratic National Committee staffer Seth Rich last year is now the subject of a lawsuit in New York against Fox News Channel.
Rod Wheeler, a Fox News commentator and private investigator, alleges unpaid Fox News contributor Ed Butowsky and reporter Malia Zimmerman used fake quotations from Wheeler in a now-retracted story about Rich. The lawsuit, filed in the Southern District of New York, alleges Butowsky and Zimmerman kept in regular contact with Trump administration officials on the story, and that President Donald Trump himself read the article before it was published. The story linked Rich to last year's leak of DNC emails by WikiLeaks.
It's the latest suit from attorney Douglas Wigdor, who has several discrimination lawsuits pending against the network. Wigdor said Wheeler reached out to him about the lawsuit, which claims defamation and racial discrimination by Fox against him. Wheeler, who is black, claims Fox News discriminated against him by denying him the same airtime and employment opportunities as his white colleagues.
Reached by phone Tuesday morning, Butowsky said he was still reading through the allegations.
The whole thing is a bunch of bullshit, he said, before hanging up to take a call from his attorney.
According to the complaint, Butowsky, a Dallas-based investor, connected with Wheeler, a former homicide detective, in February, and offered to pay for Wheeler to investigate Rich's murder. He told Wheeler, according to the complaint, that he was working with Zimmerman, who was also investigating the murder.
As it turned out, Butowsky and Zimmerman were not simply Good Samaritans attempting to solve a murder, the lawsuit claims. Rather, they were interested in advancing a political agenda for the Trump Administration.
The lawsuit alleges that after Fox published the story May 16, Wheeler called Butowsky to ask for an explanation of what he said were fake quotes and representations from him in the story. Butowsky said they were included because that is the way the President wanted the article, according to the complaint.