A Murder, a Conspiracy, and the Lies of Fox News
Sean McCabe.
A little more than four years ago, I got a Gchat message from a close friend:
"Holy shit...."
Below that was a link to a local news story about the murder of a 27-year-old named Seth Rich. I remember feeling shock, followed by a stunned feeling that soon gave way to sadness. Seth and I were peers. I didn't know him well, but I had played on a weekend soccer team with him, had friends in common. And our bios weren't all that different: Midwesterners who'd moved to D.C. after college to try to leave our mark on the world, him in politics, me in journalism.
I never expected what came next. In this era of hyper-partisan politics and viral misinformation, Seth's life and death was twisted into a conspiracy theory. This baseless and cruel speculation bubbled up on the fringes of the internet. But as I report in my newest story for Rolling Stone — an investigation that was six months in the making — Fox News and its biggest stars, led by Sean Hannity, elevated the theories about Seth and turned them into primetime news viewed by millions and an article of faith among the pro-Trump MAGA crowd.
I poured my guts into this story. I hope you'll make time for it. I’m writing a book about Seth, conspiracy theories, and his family’s fight for justice, so keep an eye on this site for more details.
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A Murder, a Conspiracy Theory, and the Lies of Fox News
The murder of Seth Rich was a family tragedy. Fox News helped make it a national spectacle that has haunted his loved ones for years
Rolling Stone | August 16, 2020
He was almost home.
In the early-morning hours of July 10th, 2016, Seth Rich walked alone across northwest Washington, D.C., making calls to his friends and family, thinking about his future.
Like so many idealistic twentysomethings, he had moved to the nation’s capital after college to work in politics. It was the first place he’d lived outside of Omaha, and he’d gradually found his way, falling in with a group of fellow strivers, biking everywhere, cooking out, and playing soccer on the weekends. A glorified internship at a polling firm led to a job at the Democratic National Committee registering new voters and protecting against voter suppression. Days earlier, he’d gotten an offer to join Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign in Brooklyn. Sitting in his drafts folder was the start of an acceptance email: “All my life I wanted to be in a position that I can make a difference….”
Yet he felt conflicted. Taking the Clinton job would mean months away from the people he loved, the life he’d built. Earlier that night, he had called his father, Joel, who had already gone to bed. He tried his older brother, Aaron, in Colorado, but they missed each other’s calls.
It was past two in the morning on the walk home when his girlfriend picked up. She stayed on the phone with him for more than two hours, until he was a block from his front door. She heard voices in the background. “I gotta go,” Seth calmly said, then hung up.
A neighbor heard gunshots and looked at the clock: 4:19 a.m. The police raced to the scene and found Seth in the street, shot but still breathing, and the paramedics rushed him to the hospital. A few hours later, Seth’s parents, Joel and Mary, received another call: Their youngest son, Seth Conrad Rich, age 27, was dead.
He was the 67th homicide victim of the year in Washington, D.C. Seth’s neighborhood had suffered a rash of armed muggings, and there were clues to suggest a physical altercation — a rip on his watch wristband, bruising on his hands and face — but nothing was taken from him, leading the police to call the crime an attempted robbery gone wrong.
The local news ran a photo of Seth from after he had moved to Washington: Sandy-haired and clean-shaven, dressed in a starter suit and candy-striped tie, he stands with his arms folded and a wry look on his face, the Washington Monument off in the distance. On July 13th, his body was buried at Beth El Cemetery in Omaha. “There are no answers for a young man gunned down in the prime of his life,” his family’s rabbi eulogized. “All we have is questions of what could have been, what should have been, and talk of potential greatness for which we will never bear witness.”
Ten months later, the cameras went live for the latest episode of Hannity, one of the most-watched cable-news shows in America. As the words “Murder Mystery” flashed onscreen, Fox News host Sean Hannity, gazing straight into the camera, began his show by informing his audience of “explosive developments” in a “massive breaking news story.” The bombshells that he was going to deliver, Hannity told the 2.4 million viewers of his May 16th, 2017, show, could lead to “one of the biggest scandals in American history.”