Assassination of Top Democratic Official Leads to Capture of Clinton Hit Team-Fiction!
Summary of eRumor:
A report that the assassination of a top Democratic Party official named Seth Rich while he was on his way to testify about Hillary Clinton has led to the FBI capturing a so-called Clinton “Hit Team.”
The Truth:
It’s true that Seth Rich was an employee of the Democratic National Party that was murdered in Washington, D.C., in July 2016.
But reports that Rich was on his way to testify about Hillary Clinton, or that his “assassination” has led to the FBI capturing a Clinton “hit team” are false.
WUSA 9 in Washington reported that Rich was shot and killed in the Bloomingdale neighborhood of Northwest D.C. in what appeared to be a robbery gone wrong:
The shooting happened in the 2100 block of Flagler Place NW on Sunday at 4:19 a.m., Metropolitan Police said.
Police arrived at the scene and found Conrad conscious and breathing. He was suffering from gunshot wounds. Conrad was taken to the hospital where he later died from his injuries.
“A lot of my girlfriends around here are talking about this and looking out for one another. We don’t want anyone walking by themselves,” neighbor Katie Ferguson said. “It’s scary. I want something done and so far there is a lot of talk, but what’s really being done?”
Officials said they are looking into the possibility that Rich’s murder is connected to other recent robberies in the area.
The sad story of Seth Rich’s death took a turn in state-sponsored Russian media. The Russian Foreign Intelligence Service, or SVR, issued a propaganda piece that reported Hillary Clinton or her campaign had been connected to Conrad’s death, and that the FBI had “captured” them.
What Does It Mean quickly spread the Russian propaganda in the U.S. with a story appearing under the headline, “Assassination of Top U.S. Democratic Party Official Leads to FBI Capture of Clinton Team,” that reports:
A somber Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) report circulating in the Kremlin today says that a top American Democratic Party staffer preparing to testify against Hillary Clinton was assassinated this past Sunday during a secret meeting in Washington D.C. he believed he was having with Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agents, but who turned out, instead, to be a “hit team”—and who, in turn, were captured yesterday after a running gun battle with US federal police forces just blocks from the White House. [Note: Some words and/or phrases appearing in quotes are English language approximations of Russian words/phrases having no exact counterpart.]
According to this report, SVR “electronic specialists” performing counter intelligence “missions/operations” noted on 7 July an “enormous/gigantic” increase of computer and telephonic traffic between the Democratic National Committee (DNC) headquarters in Washington D.C. and the Clinton Foundation (CF) offices in New York City.
Upon a “deeper/broader” investigation into this “odd/strange” increase in communications between these believed to be separate organizations, this report continues, SVR analysts determined that the original initiating person responsible was a 27-year-old DNC official named Seth Rich who was that political organizations Deputy Director Data for Voter Protection/Expansion who had helped develop a computer program for the Democratic National Committee allowing people to type in their address and get a map to their polling place.
There’s been no indication that Seth Rich’s killing was related at all to politics or Hillary Clinton in particular. And the idea that he was a “top” Democratic Party official is false. Rich was a 27-year-old who worked as the voter expansion data director at the DNC. In that role, he fought for voters’ rights.
While robbery has been cited as a motive in Rich’s death, it’s still not clear why he was murdered. His parents told the Inquisitor that if it was an attempted robbery, his attacker had failed since Rich still had cash on him when he was found
So, while it’s not clear why Rich was murdered, reports that he was assassinated by a Clinton hit team that came from Russian propaganda should be considered fiction.