Retrospective on the murder of Seth Rich: Known facts and the FBI’s silence

by WorldTribune Staff, March 4, 2018

Democrat National Committee (DNC) staffer Seth Rich was murdered in Washington, D.C. on July 10, 2016.

No one has been charged with the crime, and D.C. police are said to not even be investigating a murder which “has all the earmarks of a targeted hit job,” James A. Lyons, Jr. wrote in a March 1 analysis for The Washington Times.

Seth Rich

Lyons is a retired U.S. Navy admiral who served as commander in chief of the U.S. Pacific Fleet, 1985-87.

Washington Metro police detectives had claimed Rich was a robbery victim, “which is strange since after being shot twice in the back, he was still wearing a $2,000 gold necklace and watch. He still had his wallet, key and phone,” Lyons noted.

D.C. police, according to “open sources” cited by Lyons, “were told by their ‘higher ups’ that if they spoke about the case, they will be immediately terminated. It has been claimed that this order came down from very high up the ‘food chain,’ well beyond the D.C. mayor’s office.”

Lyons pointed to an “unexplained twist” that may be related to Rich’s case in which “on July 10, 2016, the same day Seth Rich was murdered, an FBI agent’s car was burglarized in the same vicinity. Included in the FBI equipment stolen was a 40 caliber Glock 22. D.C.Metro police issued a press release, declaring that the theft of the FBI agent’s car occurred between 5 and 7 a.m. Two weeks later, the FBI changed the time of the theft to between 12 a.m. and 2 a.m. Was the FBI gun used to shoot Seth Rich? Neither the FBI nor the Metro police will discuss.”

Lyons continued: “Another aspect that needs to be uncovered is the FBI’s ‘denial’ that its cyber experts who share space with the D.C. Metro police department at Cleveland Avenue in the District, assisted in accessing data on Rich’s laptop. Not likely. Data on the laptop revealed that Rich downloaded thousands of DNC emails and was in touch with WikiLeaks. The file with evidence of what was on Rich’s laptop sits with the FBI in a co-shared space with the D.C. police department. According to Ed Butowsky, an acquaintance of the family, in his discussions with Joel and Mary Rich, they confirmed that their son transmitted the DNC emails to WikiLeaks.”

The DNC then hired Brad Burman, “a known hatchet man to basically cut off any further communications with Rich’s parents,” Lyons noted. “Interestingly, it is well known in the intelligence circles that Seth Rich and his brother, Aaron Rich, downloaded the DNC emails and was paid by Wikileaks for that information.”

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange “gave a clear clue during an Aug. 9, 2016 interview on Dutch television when he implied that Rich was killed because he was the WikiLeaks source of the DNC emails,” Lyons wrote. “Assange offered a $20,000 reward leading to the arrest of Rich’s killers. Also, why hasn’t Aaron Rich been interviewed, and where is he?”

Lyons concluded that “The Trump administration must take charge and get a competent attorney general to pursue these crimes.”


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