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Fox News Retracts Article Pushing Conspiracy Theory About DNC Staffer's Death

May 23, 2017

Fox News has retracted a story that pushed the theory that a Democratic National Committee staffer's murder was linked to him leaking internal party communications to WikiLeaks.

In a Tuesday statement, the network explained that the story had not been properly vetted before being pushed, according to the Washington Examiner:

The story was first published at Fox News on May 16, following a report from WTTG, a Fox affiliate in Washington, D.C.

The story had relied on interviews with Rod Wheeler, a private investigator and Fox contributor, who said he found evidence that the slain DNC staffer, Seth Rich, had been in touch with WikiLeaks before his murder last summer.

"On May 16, a story was posted on the Fox News website on the investigation into the 2016 murder of DNC Staffer Seth Rich. The article was not initially subjected to the high degree of editorial scrutiny we require for all our reporting," the Fox statement read. "Upon appropriate review, the article was found not to meet those standards and has since been removed."

The story has been consistently promoted by primetime Fox News host Sean Hannity.

A letter from Rich's brother to the producer of Hannity's show asked the network to stop spreading the story.

"Think about how you would feel losing a son or brother. And while dealing with this, you had baseless accusations of your lost family member being part of a vast conspiracy," Aaron Rich wrote, according to CNN.