Butowsky - Seth Rich

Case 4:19-cv-00180-ALM-KPJ Document 62 Filed 07/15/19 Page 1 of 51 PageID #: 1240
IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

EASTERN DISTRICT OF TEXAS
SHERMAN DIVISION
Edward Butowsky, in his personal and

professional capacities,
Plaintiff,
v.
Michael Gottlieb, Meryl Governski,

Boies Schiller Flexner LLP, Brad
Bauman, The Pastorum Group, Case No. 4:19-cv-180
Leonard A. Gail, Eli J. Kay-Oliphant,
Suyash Agrawal, Massey & Gail LLP,
Gregory Y. Porter, Michael L. Murphy,
Bailey & Glasser LLP, Turner
Broadcasting System, Inc., Anderson
Cooper, Gary Tuchman, Oliver Darcy,
Tom Kludt, The New York Times
Company, Alan Feuer, Vox Media,
Inc., and Jane Coaston,
Defendants
FIRST AMENDED COMPLAINT
NOW COMES Edward Butowsky, the Plaintiff herein, alleging and stating as
follows:
Introduction
1. Some of the events in this case overlap with those in Edward Butowsky v.
David Folkenflik, et al., which is presently pending before this Court as Case No. 4:18-
cv-442-ALM. The Folkenflik complaint is attached as Exhibit 1 and incorporated herein
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by reference.
2. Late in the summer of 2017, the lives of Edward Butowsky, his family, and his
co-workers were upended by false allegations that he conspired with White House
officials to divert attention away from earlier (and equally false) allegations that President
Donald Trump “colluded” with the Russian government to “steal” the 2016 Presidential
election from Hillary Clinton. On August 1, 2017, New York attorney Douglas Wigdor
and his partners filed a bogus lawsuit alleging that Mr. Butowsky, Fox News reporter
Malia Zimmerman, and Fox News itself had fabricated a false story that a former
Democratic National Committee (“DNC”) employee – not the Russian government – was
responsible for stealing DNC emails and giving them to Wikileaks.
3. The bogus lawsuit portrayed Mr. Butowsky as a ruthless political operative of
President Trump when, in reality, he never had (and never has) met President Trump nor
spoken with him. In fact, Mr. Butowsky supported three candidates other than Mr. Trump
in the primary, and in 2007 he donated $2,700 to the campaign of President Barack
Obama.
4. Mr. Wigdor, et al. nonetheless made the false allegations because they knew
that most American journalists were (and are) consumed with hatred of President Trump,
and they knew that most American media would publish or broadcast nearly anything –
with little concern for accuracy – so long as it portrayed President Trump (or anyone
tangentially connected to him) in a negative light. As detailed below, Mr. Wigdor, et al.
planned to use the false allegations and the resulting negative publicity to extort money
from Fox News.
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5. Mr. Butosky is by no means the only victim of the anti-Trump obsession within
American media. On February 20, 2019, for example, the parents of 16-year-old Nick
Sandmann sued The Washington Post for $250 million in damages because the
newspaper smeared him with false accusations of taunting an elderly Native American
veteran following a pro-life rally. The high-school student had made one unforgivable
mistake: he wore a “Make America Great Again” (or “MAGA”) hat that is affiliated with
President Trump's political campaign. Based on that alone, the Post and other media
comfortably assumed that he was a prejudiced white elitist. Within a day of the incident,
however, video emerged that proved Sandmann had not taunted or harassed anyone, and
on March 1, 2019 the Post belatedly admitted that its previous coverage of Sandmann
was inaccurate. Similarly, left-wing media breathlessly trumpeted allegations from actor
Jussie Smollett that he had been assaulted on January 29, 2019 by men wearing MAGA
hats and uttering anti-gay and racial slurs. Because of their confirmation bias, most
journalists ignored immediate and obvious evidence that Smollett was lying, i.e., they
were so eager to believe that Trump supporters would assault a gay black man that they
forgot to ask why it would have happened at 2 a.m. during a blizzard in overwhelmingly
Democratic Chicago. Smollet's story soon unraveled and on March 8, 2019 was indicted
on 16 felony counts for lying to police and fabricating a hoax.
6. In Mr. Butowsky's case, the disinformation campaign has taken much longer to
unravel. Unscrupulous left-wing journalists and attorneys have perpetuated a myth about
a myth, i.e., that Mr. Butowsky pushed a fictitious story about the stolen emails in order
to divert attention from the fictitious story about “collusion” with the Russian
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government. In reality, the “Russia collusion” conspiracy theory is the only myth, and
Mr. Butowsky's statements about the stolen emails were accurate.
7. As a result of the lies fabricated and perpetuated by the Defendants, Mr.
Butowsky and his family received death threats, he lost one third of his business clients,
rocks were thrown through the windows of his home, his automobiles were burglarized,
his computers were hacked, he lost friendships, and he lost the opportunity to host a
planned television program. Left-wing extremists even posted a clock on the internet
counting down the time until Mr. Butowsky's son would return for classes at Vanderbilt
University, implying that Mr. Butowsky's son would be harmed when he returned. As a
result, Mr. Butowsky had to hire a bodyguard for his son.
8. The Defendants' smear campaign never should have begun, and it has lasted for
far too long. Now it's time for the Defendants to answer for the lies that they spread and
the harm that they caused.
Jurisdiction and Venue
9. This Court has diversity jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1332 because the
Plaintiff resides in Texas, whereas all Defendants reside in other states.
10. Venue is proper in this district and the Court has personal jurisdiction over all
Defendants because they participated in intentional torts that were designed to hurt the
Plaintiff in Texas. All of the Defendants knew that the Plaintiff was a resident of Texas
when they targeted him. Defendant CNN, for example, repeatedly described Mr.
Butowsky as a “Texas businessman,” and most other media routinely reference the fact
that Mr. Butowsky lives near Dallas or in Texas.
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Parties
11. Plaintiff Edward Butowksy is a financial advisor who resides in Plano, Texas.
He brings claims in his personal and professional capacities.
12. Defendant Michael Gottlieb is an attorney who resides in or near Washington,
D.C. He was a partner at all times relevant in the Defendant law firm Boies Schiller
Flexner LLP.
13. Defendant Meryl Governski is an attorney who resides in or near Washington,
D.C. She is an associate in the Defendant law firm Boies Schiller Flexner LLP.
14. Defendant Boies Schiller Flexner LLP is a law firm and professional
partnership organized under the laws of New York and headquartered in New York, New
York. Hereinafter, it and Defendants Gottlieb and Schiller are collectively the “Boies
Schiller Defendants.”
15. Defendant Brad Bauman is a political communications consultant who lives in
Washington, D.C. He is a partner in Defendant The Pastorum Group.
16. Defendant The Pastorum Group is a political consulting firm in Washington,
D.C.
17. Defendant Leonard A. Gail is an attorney who resides in or near Chicago,
Illinois. He is a partner in the Defendant law firm Massey & Gail LLP.
18. Defendant Eli J. Kay-Oliphant is an attorney who resides in or near Chicago,
19. Defendant Suyash Agrawal is an attorney who resides in or near Chicago,
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20. Defendant Massey & Gail LLP is a law firm and professional partnership
organized under the laws of Illinois and headquartered in Chicago, Illinois. Hereinafter, it
and Defendants Gail, Kay-Oliphant, and Agrawal are collectively the “Massey & Gail
Defendants.”
21. Defendant Gregory Y. Porter is an attorney who resides in or near
Washington, D.C. He is a partner in Bailey & Glasser LLP.
22. Defendant Michael L. Murphy is an attorney who resides in or near
Washington, D.C. He is a partner in Bailey & Glasser LLP.
23. Defendant Bailey & Glasser LLP is a law partnership headquartered in West
Virginia. Hereinafter, it and Defendants Porter and Murphy are collectively known as the
“Bailey & Glasser Defendants.”
24. Defendant Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. (hereinafter “Defendant CNN”)
is a Georgia corporation headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia. CNN is a left-wing media
brand that is wholly-owned by Turner Broadcasting System, Inc.
25. Anderson Cooper is a left-wing media personality who hosts Anderson
Cooper 360, an infotainment program broadcast by CNN. He lives and works in New
York, New York. The Court has general jurisdiction over Mr. Cooper because, contrary
to his June 28, 2019 affidavit (Doc. No. 50-2), he does transact business in Texas. From
his website http://www.ac2live.com, he is now selling tickets for an upcoming live
performance in Sugarland, Texas with Andy Cohen. According to the Houston
Chronicle, “Anderson Cooper and Andy Cohen just can't stay away from each other. And
the Houston area.” Mr. Cooper has sold tickets to at least one other performance in
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Texas, and he is not merely the anchor of a cable program. The program bears his name,
and he has a vested financial interest in expanding its reach into Texas.
26. Defendant Gary Tuchman is a reporter for CNN. He lives and works in
Atlanta, Georgia.
27. Defendant Oliver Darcy is a senior media reporter for CNN. He lives and
works in New York, New York.
28. Defendant Tom Kludt is a media reporter for CNN. He lives and works in
New York, New York.
29. Defendant The New York Times Company (“Defendant NYT”) is a New
York media corporation in New York, New York. It owns and publishes the The New
York Times.
30. Defendant Alan Feuer is a court reporter for The New York Times and a
resident of New York. Personal jurisdiction is proper because Mr. Feuer knew Mr.
Butowsky was a resident of Texas when he targeted Mr. Butowsky. The very lawsuit that
Mr. Feuer wrote about (discussed hereinafter) mentions the fact that Mr. Butowsky is a
Texas resident.
31. Defendant Vox Media, Inc. is a media company headquartered in New York,
New York. It publishes Vox online.
32. Defendant Jane Coaston is a left-wing political activist who masquerades as
the “senior political reporter” for Vox. She is a resident of Washington, D.C. Personal
jurisdiction is proper because Ms. Coaston knew Mr. Butowsky was a resident of Texas
when she targeted Mr. Butowsky. The lawsuits that Ms. Coaston wrote about (discussed
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hereinafter) mention the fact that Mr. Butowsky is a Texas resident.
33. Defendant The Democratic National Committee (“Defendant DNC”) is a
political organization headquartered in Washington, D.C.
Facts
Background
34. As indicated above, this case is the consequence of a conspiracy theory,
namely that President Trump “colluded” with the Russian government to swing the 2016
Presidential election in his favor. That conspiracy theory will hereinafter be referred to as
the “Russia Collusion Hoax” or just the “RCH.” Since the Plaintiff filed his ORIGINAL
COMPLAINT in this case on March 12, 2019, the RCH has unraveled even more, and the
public is just now beginning to understand the breadth and scope of the conspiracy to
overthrow a duly-elected President.
35. In 2015, the administration of President Barrack Obama began spying on
prominent Republican presidential candidates, as well as Democratic candidate Bernie
Sanders, in an effort to support Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton. At that time, the
Central Intelligence Agency (“CIA”) was headed by Director John Brennan, and the
Federal Bureau of Investigation (“FBI”) was under the effective control of its deputy
director, Andrew McCabe. Mr. Brennan and Mr. McCabe are ruthless and unscrupulous
Democratic partisans, and they were determined to destroy any candidate who might
threaten the candidacy of Mrs. Clinton. Mr. Brennan even created a “working group”
within the CIA to sabotage Mrs. Clinton's political opponents, particularly Donald
Trump. The “working group” included Mr. McCabe and other FBI employees, as well as
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employees from the National Security Agency (“NSA).
36. As of 2015, Mrs. Clinton's campaign was already dogged by revelations that
she had avoided using State Department email systems while she was U.S. Secretary of
State, and that she had instead used a private, insecure email server kept in her home.
Adding to Mrs. Clinton's political troubles, classified information was found on her
homemade server, and that called into question her competence to handle national
security matters. It also rendered her liable to federal criminal charges. By early 2016,
Mrs. Clinton was facing multiple investigations, including Congressional, administrative,
and criminal investigations, related to the private email server. Furthermore, the public
learned that Mrs. Clinton's attorneys had destroyed more than 30,000 of her emails even
those emails were subject to outstanding subpoenas. In other words, Mrs. Clinton's
lawyers had intentionally and systematically destroyed more than 30,000 pieces of
evidence. The ongoing investigations were a political albatross for Mrs. Clinton.
37. The FBI's criminal investigation of the Clinton email fiasco was known as
“Operation Mid-Year Exam” or “MYE,” and it was headed by Mr. McCabe and FBI
Director James Comey. Two of the most important players on the MYE team were FBI
agents Peter Strzok and Lisa Page, the latter of whom was assigned to the FBI's Office of
General Cousel. Mr. Strzok and Ms. Page were avid Hillary Clinton supporters and
partisan Democrats, and they were determined to protect Mrs. Clinton and undermine her
opponents at any cost.
38. As explained by retired Central Intelligence Agency analyst Larry C. Johnson,
the RCH began in earnest on May 4, 2016, when Ted Cruz dropped out of the
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Presidential race. See Larry C. Johnson, “The Campaign to Paint Trump as a Russian
Stooge Started on May 4, 2016,” (https://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semper_tyrannis/
2019/05/the-campaign-to-paint-trump-as-a-russian-stooge-started-on-may-4-2016-by-
larry-c-johnson.html). The following are texts exchanged between Mr. Strzok and Ms.
Page on that date:
Mr. Strzok and Ms. Page were under pressure from Mr. McCabe to finish MYE quickly –
and whitewash Mrs. Clinton's crimes – in order to minimize the damage to her political
candidacy. They were also directed to shift their attention to Mr. Trump. (The CIA
“working group” identified above was launched in June of 2016, and the Plaintiff alleges
on information and belief that Mr. Strzok and Ms. Page were assigned to it from the
outset).
39. Also in early May of 2016, Mrs. Clinton launched an initiative to divert
attention from the mounting evidence that she was corrupt and incompetent. She retained
the law firm Perkins Coie, LLP to create a counter-narrative that her opponent, Donald
Trump, was not only corrupt, but treasonous. With Mrs. Clinton's approval, Perkins Coie
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hired the left-wing “investigative” firm Fusion GPS, and Fusion GPS in turn hired former
British spy Christopher Steele to fabricate “evidence” that Mr. Trump had colluded with
the Russian government. Mr. Steele's fabricated report was then used by Obama
Administration officials to secure wiretapping warrants against members of the Trump
campaign.
40. While the Clinton campaign tasked Perkins Coie with hiring Fusion GPS and
Christopher Steele, the DNC set in motion the false narrative that the Russian
government had hacked its servers. The DNC's ultimate goal was to blame Mr. Trump for
colluding with the Russian government to hack its servers. According to an article in
Esquire magazine, DNC officials found out on May 5, 2016 that the DNC's servers had
been breached. According to the article, the servers had been breached by Russian
hackers, and the DNC asked an internet security company, CrowdStrike, Inc., to
investigate the breach. In reality, Perkins Coie had hired CrowdStrike on behalf of the
DNC, just like it hired Fusion GPS on behalf of the Clinton campaign, and it did so for
the purpose of creating a diversion. Contrary to the Esquire story, the DNC had
discovered prior to May 5, 2016 that one of its own employees had been leaking emails
(the DNC likely did not know the identity of the employee at that time, but they knew the
leak was internal). The DNC also knew that the emails would soon become public, and it
knew that the emails would be very damaging to Mrs. Clinton's political campaign.
41. Just as Mr. Strzok and Ms. Page realized on May 4, 2016 that they needed to
bury the MYE investigation into Mrs. Clinton quickly, the Clinton campaign and the
DNC recognized an opportunity to rewrite the narrative about the damaging emails that
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would soon be released to the public. Rather than acknowledge that a DNC employee
was so appalled by the corruption he had witnessed inside the DNC and the Clinton
campaign that he leaked emails to Wikileaks, the DNC and Clinton campaign decided
they would instead blame the leaked emails on the Russian government, then blame Mr.
Trump for colluding with the Russian government.
42. The DNC employee responsible for the leaks was Seth Rich, and he was
assisted by his brother Aaron. Mr. Butowsky does not know exactly when the DNC
figured out that Mr. Rich was the source of the leak. On July 10, 2016, however, Mr.
Rich was fatally shot while walking home in Washington, D.C., and the murder has not
been solved. Mr. Butowsky does not know whether the murder is related to Mr. Rich's
role in leaking DNC emails.
43. Shortly after the murder, the interim DNC chair at the time, Donna Brazile,
reached out to Mr. McCabe and Washington, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser for help in
dealing with the political consequences of the murder. Ms. Brazile knew suspicions
would soon arise, fairly or unfairly, that the murder was connected to the email leaks.
D.C. police allowed the FBI to unlock Seth Rich's electronic devices, and the FBI
obtained data showing that Mr. Rich had indeed provided the DNC emails to Wikileaks.
At Mr. McCabe's direction, however, that information was kept secret with orders that it
not be produced in response to any Freedom of Information Act request. For her part,
Ms. Bowser directed D.C. police not to pursue any investigative avenues that might
connect the murder to the email leaks. At her direction, local police blamed the murder
on a “botched robbery” even though Mr. Rich's watch, wallet, and other belongings were
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not removed from his body.
44. On July 22, 2016, Wikileaks began publishing thousands of email that had
been downloaded from the DNC's servers by Seth Rich and his brother, Aaron. Those
emails showed how the campaign of Democratic Presidential nominee Hillary Clinton
had corruptly taken control of the DNC for the purpose of sabotaging her primary
opponent, Bernie Sanders. Per their game plan, the Clinton campaign and the DNC
immediately claimed that the emails had been obtained by hackers working for the
Russian government.
45. Mr. Butowsky stumbled into the RCH crosshairs after Ellen Ratner, a news
analyst for Fox News and the White House correspondent for Talk Media News,
contacted him in the Fall of 2016 about a meeting she had with Mr. Assange. Ms.
Ratner's brother, the late Michael Ratner, was an attorney who had represented Mr.
Assange. According to Ms. Ratner, she made a stop in London during a return flight from
Berlin, and she met with Mr. Assange for approximately six hours in the Ecuadorean
embassy. Ms. Ratner said Mr. Assange told her that Seth Rich and his brother, Aaron,
were responsible for releasing the DNC emails to Wikileaks. Ms. Ratner said Mr.
Assange wanted the information relayed to Seth's parents, as it might explain the motive
for Seth's murder.
46. Upon her return to the United States, Ms. Ratner asked Mr. Butowsky to
contact the Rich family and relay the information from Mr. Assange, apparently because
Ms. Ratner did not want her involvement to be made public. In the two months that
followed, Mr. Butowsky did not attempt to contact the Rich family, but he grew
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increasingly frustrated as the DNC and #Resistance “journalists” blamed the Russian
government for the email leak. On December 16, 2016, Mr. Butowsky sent a text
message to Ms. Ratner:
Ms. Ratner subsequently told Mr. Butowsky that she had informed Bill Shine, who was
then the co-president of Fox News, about her meeting with Mr. Assange in London. Ms.
Ratner also informed Fox News producer Malia Zimmerman about her meeting with Mr.
Assange.
47. On December 17, 2016, at the instigation of Ms. Ratner, Mr. Butowsky finally
contacted Joel and Mary Rich, the parents of Seth, and he relayed the information about
Ms. Ratner's meeting with Mr. Assange. During that conversation, Mr. Rich told Mr.
Butowsky that he already knew that his sons were involved in the DNC email leak, but he
and his wife just wanted to know who murdered Seth. Mr. Rich said he was reluctant to
go public with Seth's and Aaron's role in leaking the emails because “we don't want
anyone to think our sons were responsible for getting Trump elected.” Mr. Rich said he
did not have enough money to hire a private investigator, so Mr. Butowsky offered to pay
for one. Mr. Rich accepted the offer and thanked Mr. Butowsky in an email.
48. On December 29, 2016 at 1:51 p.m., Mr. Butowsky sent an email to Ms.
Ratner from his iPad: “If the person you met with truly said what he did, is their [sic] a
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reason you we aren't reporting it ?” At 3:48 p.m. that afternoon, Ms. Ratner responded as
follows: “because--- it was a family meeting---- I would have to get his permission-- will
ask his new lawyer, my sister-in-law.”
49. Mr. Butowsky later referred the Rich family to Rod Wheeler, a Fox News
contributor and former homicide detective with the Metropolitan Police Department in
Washington, D.C. Mr. Butowsky only knew Mr. Wheeler through his occasional guest
appearances on Fox News. Aaron Rich's wife, Molly Rich, drafted a retainer contract for
Mr. Wheeler, and he began working directly for the Rich family. Mr. Butowsky agreed to
pay from Mr. Wheeler's services, but he had no control over Mr. Wheeler's work for the
Rich family.
50. On May 16, 2017, FoxNews.com published a story by Malia Zimmerman
which claimed that Seth Rich had been involved in the DNC email leak. The article
undermined the DNC narrative that Seth Rich had been murdered in a “botched robbery,”
and it likewise undermined the Russia Collusion Hoax. The story featured quotes from
Mr. Wheeler regarding his investigation, as well as quotes from an unnamed federal
official who claimed that federal investigators had copies of Seth Rich's communications
with Wikileaks. Shortly thereafter, the Rich family terminated Mr. Wheeler, and Mr.
Wheeler was subjected to withering scorn and criticism from anti-Trump media.
51. On May 18, 2017, Mr. Wheeler told Mr. Butowsky that he needed an attorney
to pursue claims against Marina Marraco, a reporter for the local Fox affiliate in
Washington, D.C. According to Mr. Wheeler, Ms. Marraco duped him into granting an
interview about the Seth Rich investigation so she could “scoop” Ms. Zimmerman and
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publish her story one day before the Fox News network published Ms Zimmerman's
story. At Mr. Wheeler's request, Mr. Butowsky introduced Mr. Wheeler to some well-
known attorneys in Dallas. Mr. Butowsky participated in the telephone conversation
between Mr. Wheeler and the Dallas attorneys, and Mr. Wheeler never once indicated
that he had been misquoted or mistreated by Mr. Butowsky, Ms. Zimmerman, or Fox
News (as opposed to the local affiliate in D.C.). On the contrary, Mr. Wheeler sent a
written statement to Ms. Zimmerman at 1 p.m. on May 19, 2017 wherein he claimed that
he had shared the contents of Ms. Zimmerman's story with Joel Rich and Aaron Rich the
night before it was published:
In the contract I have with the family, signed by Joel, Mary and Aaron Rich, I am
not allowed to speak to the media on the family's behalf, but I could speak to the
media about this investigation of Seth Rich's murder or other stories I was
involved in. They knew I was a Fox News contributor and regularly went on
television.
I called Joel Rich the night before the Fox News story was going to be published,
which was Monday night. During that 18-minute call (phone logs provided), I
reviewed the story with Joel Rich, he liked it and was encouraged by the new
leads. Joel already knew about the story because Fox had contacted him earlier in
the day. He also suggested I contact an investigative reporter, Michelle Sigona,
from CrimeWatch Daily with the information. I also spoke with Aaron Rich, Joel's
son, for 21 minutes the night before the story came out and told him about the new
information that had emerged and the story would likely be coming out in the near
future.
I told them both I would be commenting on the case and asking people to come
forward if they had insight on the new information. I never violated the terms of
our contract as I never spoke on behalf of the family.
According to Mr. Wheeler, the Riches did not object to the Fox News story when he
discussed it with them in advance of its publication.
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52. On May 23, 2017, Fox News retracted the May 16, 2017 article, claiming that
the article did not meet its editorial standards. Fox News did not identify any errors in the
article, and there were none. Within the network, rumors began to circulate that the story
was killed by Sarah and Kathryn Murdoch, the left-leaning Hillary Clinton supporters
and daughters-in-law of Fox News founder Rupert Murdoch. One month prior to the May
23, 2017 retraction, Sarah and Kathryn Murdoch were credited with driving out
conservative Fox News host Bill O'Reilly. See Don Kaplan, “Rupert Murdoch’s sons’
progressive wives helped oust Bill O’Reilly from Fox News Channel,” New York Daily
News, April 19, 2017 (https://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/murdoch-sons-
progressive-wives-helped-oust-bill-o-reilly-article-1.3075872). Kathryn previously
worked for the Clinton Climate Initiative, and her husband James was a donor to the
Clinton Foundation.
53. About a week after speaking with the attorneys in Dallas, Mr. Wheeler told
Mr. Butowsky that he had decided to use another attorney, and that he would receive $4
million for using the other attorney. Mr. Butowsky soon learned that the other attorney
was Douglas Wigdor, an employment attorney in New York who had filed numerous
discrimination lawsuits against Fox News. According to Mr. Wigdor's own public
statements, he was hoping to recover $60 million in damages from the ongoing lawsuits
against Fox News. Unbeknownst to Mr. Butowsky at the time, Mr. Wigdor had enlisted
Mr. Wheeler in an extortion scheme. As of 2017, Fox News's parent company, 21 st
Century Fox, Inc., was trying to gain approval from British regulators to purchase Sky
Television, and Mr. Wigdor saw Mr. Wheeler's case as an opportunity to extort money
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from Fox. Rather than pursue claims against the local affiliate in D.C. that had duped Mr.
Wheeler and deceptively edited his statements, Mr. Wigdor convinced Mr. Wheeler to
fabricate an entirely new story, i.e., that Mr. Butowsky and Ms. Zimmerman had been
conspiring with President Trump to divert attention from the Russia collusion narrative.
Mr. Wigdor planned to use those explosive allegations to sabotage Fox's attempts to buy
Sky, specifically by convincing British regulators that Fox News was entirely unethical
and had acted corruptly at the behest of President Trump. In fact, Mr. Wigdor mentioned
Fox's attempt to buy Sky News in the lawsuit that he subsequently filed on behalf of Mr.
Wigdor, and he later testified before a British parliamentary committee in opposition to
the Sky Television purchase.
54. In his bogus lawsuit, Mr. Wheeler selectively quoted texts and emails from
Mr. Butowsky to make it appear that Mr. Butowsky had pushed the May 16, 2017 Fox
News story at the behest of President Trump. In reality, Mr. Butowsky never had (and
never has) met President Trump nor spoken with him. Although Mr. Butowsky knew
people who worked in the Trump White House, he had actively supported Carly Fiorina
in the Republican primary. After she dropped out of the race, he supported Marco Rubio
and Chris Christie. Nonetheless, because Mr. Butowsky knew people who worked in the
White House, Mr. Wheeler repeatedly begged Mr. Butowsky for help in getting a job
there, and Mr. Butowsky has numerous texts and emails to prove that. (When he
recommended Mr. Wheeler to the Rich family, Mr. Butowsky did not know that Mr.
Wheeler was habitually broke, nor did he know that Mr. Wheeler was fired from the
Metropolitan Police Department for marijuana use). As a result of Mr. Wheeler's repeated
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requests for help in getting a White House job, Mr. Butowsky jokingly told Mr. Wheeler
that the White House was anxiously awaiting the results of his Seth Rich investigation.
Mr. Wheeler knew full well that Mr. Butowsky was joking, and Mr. Wheeler knew full
well that Mr. Butowsky had no personal connection to the President.
55. When Mr. Wigdor filed suit against Mr. Butowsky, Ms. Zimmerman, and Fox
News in August of 2017, he knew that Mr. Wheeler had not been misquoted in the Fox
News story, and that's because Mr. Butowsky and his attorneys had provided Mr. Wigdor
with texts, emails, and audio evidence proving that Mr. Wheeler had not been misquoted.
Mr. Wigdor also knew that the Trump Administration played no role in the May 16, 2017
Fox News story. Mr. Wigdor filed the fraudulent lawsuit anyway.
56. Even though Fox News retracted its May 17, 2017 report by Malia
Zimmerman, local affiliate WTTG (a.k.a. “Fox 5 DC”) did not retract its report by Ms.
Marraco. Instead, WTTG updated its May 15, 2017 on May 17, 2017 report to prove
unequivocally that Mr. Wheeler was lying to other media outlets when he denied saying
there was evidence connecting Seth Rich to the DNC leak. See Maria Marraco, Fox 5 DC
(http://www.fox5dc.com/news/local-news/private-investigator-there-is-evidence-seth-
rich-contacted-wikileaks-prior-to-death). WTTG uploaded video showing the following
statements by Mr. Wheeler:
FOX 5 DC: “You have sources at the FBI saying that there is information...”
WHEELER: "For sure..."
FOX 5 DC: “...that could link Seth Rich to WikiLeaks?"
WHEELER: "Absolutely. Yeah. That's confirmed."
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Within days of the updated May 17, 2017 report by WTTG, all of the defendants in this
lawsuit were actually aware that Mr. Wheeler was lying about Mr. Butowsky, Ms.
Zimmerman, and Fox News.
57. The website DebunkingRodWheelersClaims.com (now at
DeBunkingRodWheelersClaims.net) was launched in November of 2017, and it
published texts, emails, audio, and video showing that Rod Wheeler had never been
misrepresented by Mr. Butowsky, Ms. Zimmerman, or Fox News, including the email
quoted above in Paragraph 51. The evidence on the website showed unequivocally that
Mr. Wheeler had lied to other media about them. The website also included audio of
famed journalist Seymour “Sy” Hersh stating that he had confirmed that Seth Rich was
responsible for leaking the DNC emails. According to Mr. Hersh, who was by no means a
Republican or a Trump supporter, he could not find a media outlet willing to publish the
Seth Rich story. In a separate phone call with Mr. Butowsky, Mr. Hersh said he obtained
his information about Seth Rich from Mr. McCabe, the deputy FBI director. Not later
than December of 2017, all of the Defendants in this lawsuit were aware of the contents
of DebunkingRodWheelersClaims.com.
58. On May 15, 2018, after Mr. Wigdor got what he needed from Mr. Wheeler in
terms of political and public relations impact, Mr. Wigdor and his firm sought to drop
Mr. Wheeler as a client. Judge Daniels allowed Mr. Wigdor and his partners to withdraw
on May 30, 2018, and Mr. Wheeler's frivolous lawsuit was dismissed on August 2, 2018.
The unscrupulous Mr. Wigdor then settled all of his remaining clients' claims against Fox
News for a $10 million lump sum (rather than the $60 million that he had originally
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sought), and Mr. Wigdor apportioned $7 million of that among those clients.
Defendants Bauman and The Pastorum Group
59. In early March of 2017, Joel Rich informed Mr. Butowsky that he had
received a call from Defendant Bauman, and that Defendant Bauman said he had been
“assigned” to the Rich family by the DNC. Defendant Bauman is an unscrupulous left-
wing political operative, and the DNC assigned him to the Rich family in order to control
them and keep the Russia Collusion Hoax alive. Defendant Bauman knew that Seth Rich
leaked emails to Wikileaks, but Defendant Bauman's assignment was to divert attention
away from Seth Rich in order to keep the RCH alive.
60. Under coercion from Mr. Bauman and the lawyer Defendants named in this
lawsuit, Joel Rich stopped speaking with Mr. Butowsky and the Rich family started
attacking Mr. Butowsky publicly (albeit not by name). Prior to the time of Mr. Bauman's
involvement, the Rich family acknowledged to friends and relatives that Seth and Aaron
were involved in the DNC email leak, but then they suddenly changed their story. On
information and belief, Mr. Butowksy alleges that Joel, Mary, and Aaron Rich were told
that Aaron could be charged with felony computer crimes if they did not cooperate with
their new handlers, i.e., Mr. Bauman and the lawyer Defendants. Aaron Rich's lawyers
have repeatedly alleged, for example, that Mr. Butowsky accused him (i.e., Aaron) of
computer crimes and treason. In reality, Mr. Butowsky has never said such a thing. This
appears to be an example of psychological projection on the part of the lawyers
purporting to represent Aaron. To wit, they have accused their client of committing
computer crimes and treason, but they attribute the accusation to Mr. Butowsky.
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61. The Rich's lawsuits against Mr. Butowsky (discussed below) are part of a
larger pattern. On April 20, 2018, the DNC filed a hare-brained, kamakaze lawsuit
alleging that President Trump colluded with the Russians to steal its emails, even though
the DNC already knew that neither President Trump nor the Russians had anything to do
with the hacking. See Democratic National Committee v. Russian Federation, et al., Case
No. 1:18-cv-03501 (S.D.N.Y.). The DNC knew it could never win the case, but that was
not the objective. The objective was to keep the Russian Collusion Hoax in the headlines
through the 2018 Congressional elections. Similarly, Mr. Bauman orchestrated a hyper-
aggressive litigation / defamation strategy designed to intimidate, discredit, and
ultimately silence anyone who questioned the DNC narrative about Seth Rich's
involvement in leaking emails. In particular, Mr. Bauman recruited the various lawyer
Defendants herein to sue Mr. Butowsky into silence. (In fact, a left-wing publication
praised the strategy. See Amanda Marcotte, “Can lawsuits slow the tide of right-wing
conspiracy theory? Seth Rich’s family wants to find out,” June 1, 2018 Salon
(https://www.salon.com/2018/06/01/can-lawsuits-slow-the-tide-of-right-wing-
conspiracy-theory-seth-richs-family-wants-to-find-out)). The Boise Schiller Defendants
have, for example, offered to settle their clients' claims against Mr. Butowsky's co-
defendants for nominal sums if those co-defendants will agree to remain silent in the
future about Seth Rich and the leaked emails. In other words, the objective of Mr.
Bauman's litigation/defamation strategy is not to recover damages, but to discredit people
like Mr. Butowsky and bully them into silence.
- 22 -
62. To be clear, Mr. Bauman and the lawyer Defendants – all of whom are
Democratic partisans – knowingly joined in a larger conspiracy to promote and protect
the RCH, and particularly to discredit and intimidate anyone like Mr. Butowsky who
might undermine the RCH narrative. While Mr. Bauman and the lawyer Defendants were
playing offense against Mr. Butowsky by suing and defaming him, their governmental
co-conspirators (e.g., Mr. McCabe, Mayor Bowser, and then-Police Chief Kathy Lanier)
were playing defense. Mayor Bowser and Chief Lanier, for example, blocked city
investigators from pursuing any information that might undermine the RCH narrative.
The lead homicide detective assigned to the case, Joseph Dellacamera, was flatly
prohibited from revealing the connection between Seth Rich and Wikileaks. See, e.g.,
Patrick Howley, “Seth Rich Police Detective: Department Gave Me ‘Strict, Strict Rules,’
If I Talk I’ll Get ‘Re-Assigned’,” August 2, 2017, BigLeaguePolitics.com
(https://bigleaguepolitics.com/seth-rich-police-detective-department-gave-strict-strict-
rules-talk-ill-get-re-assigned). For his part, Mr. McCabe ordered FBI agents to hide all
information connecting Seth Rich to Wikileaks, and to deny its existence in response to
any FOIA requests.
63. The scam continues even now. In his March 22, 2019 report on alleged
Russian collusion, Special Counsel Robert Mueller stated unequivocally that Russian
hackers were responsible for sending DNC emails to Wikileaks, but he was later forced
to admit that his investigators had never examined the DNC's servers. Instead, Mr.
Mueller had relied on exclusively on a redacted copy of a report that CrowdStrike had
produced for the DNC. So far as the Plaintiff is aware, the U.S. Department of Justice had
- 23 -
never before relied exclusively on a private company's report about an alleged computer
crime (as opposed to the government conducting its own investigation), and Mr. Mueller
certainly did not disclose in his report that he had failed to examine the servers.
Furthermore, Mr. Mueller never made any attempt to interview Mr. Assange, who would
know better than anyone else how Wikileaks obtained the DNC emails. Mr. Mueller's
investigation was a farce, at least so far as Seth Rich and DNC “hacking” were
concerned.
64. Mr. Mueller's deputy, Andrew Weissmann, is a Democratic partisan and a
Hillary Clinton supporter with a long history of prosecutorial misconduct (in fact, all of
the 17 attorneys on Mr. Mueller's staff were partisan Democrats, and his investigators
initially included Democratic partisans Mr. Strzok and Ms. Page). On July 13, 2019,
Congressman Devin Nunes revealed that prior to his appointment to the Mueller team,
Mr. Weissmann played an undisclosed role in briefing reporters about allegations that
President Trump had colluded with Russia. The Plaintiff alleges that Mr. Weissman
conspired with Mr. McCabe and DNC officials to maintain the false narrative that
Russians were responsible for hacking the DNC, most recently by inserting false
information into Mr. Mueller's report. The Plaintiff further alleges that Mr. Bauman and
the lawyer Defendants herein knew that their governmental co-conspirators (e.g., Mr.
Weissmann and Mr. McCabe) were hiding and misrepresenting evidence, and that they
were hiding and misrepresenting the evidence at least in part to aid the campaign against
people like Mr. Butowsky. As a result of this scheme, Mr. Butowsky was severely
hindered in his efforts to defend himself in the litigation discussed below. Plaintiff's
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Counsel, for example, filed a FOIA lawsuit against the FBI for information about Seth
Rich, and the Plaintiff intended to use that information for litigation purposes, but Mr.
McCabe and the other governmental defendants lied to the FOIA court and hid the
information.
The beginning of the litigation campaign
65. After Mr. Wigdor filed suit in New York on behalf of Mr. Wheeler,
Defendant Bauman seized on the opportunity to smear and defame anyone involved
suggesting that Seth Rich was involved in leaking DNC emails. He recruited the Masey
& Gail Defendants to file a frivolous March 13, 2018 lawsuit on behalf of Joel and Mary
Rich. Premised on the bogus Wheeler lawsuit, the Riches' lawsuit fabricated a wild tale
about Mr. Butowsky, Ms. Zimmerman, and Fox News conspiring to harm them by
manufacturing a conspiracy theory about the murder of Seth Rich. Shortly thereafter,
Defendant Bauman recruited the Boies Schiller Defendants to file the baseless lawsuit
against Mr. Butowsky (and others) on behalf of Aaron Rich. Around the same time,
Defendant Bauman filed his own frivolous lawsuit against Mr. Butowsky (and others),
alleging that Mr. Butowsky had somehow defamed him by stating that Defendant
Bauman had been “assigned” by Defendant DNC.
66. As detailed below, Mr. Bauman's strategy was at least partially successful,
because American journalists launched a full frontal assault on Mr. Butowsky, falsely
portraying him as a con man who fabricated a false story about Seth Rich. Defendants
such as CNN, Vox, and The New York Times alleged that there was “no evidence” to
support the “conspiracy theory” that Seth Rich leaked emails from the DNC. In reality,
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there was plenty of evidence, and they knew about the evidence.
Evidence that DNC emails were leaked, not hacked
67. In an unprecedented act on August 9, 2016 on Dutch television station NOS,
Wikileaks founder Julian Assange spoke specifically about Seth Rich: “Whistleblowers
go to significant efforts to get us material, often very significant risks. There’s a 27-year-
old that works for the DNC who was shot in the back, murdered, just two weeks ago, for
unknown reasons as he was walking down the street in Washington… I am suggesting
that our sources, ah, take risks and they, they become concerned to see things occurring
like that…” Mr. Assange had not before, and has not since, discussed the identify of any
confidential source for Wikileaks. Wikileaks also offered a $20,000 reward for
information leading to the conviction of Seth Rich's killers, yet the anti-Trump media
treated this information as if it was part of a hoax. That's a far cry from the way
journalists had treated Mr. Assange and Wikileaks in preceding years, e.g., when
Wikileaks published documents about the Iraq War that proved harmful to the Bush
Administration. Mr. Assange became a pariah as soon as anti-Trump journalists
concluded that Wikileaks had done something harmful to Hillary Clinton and helpful to
Donald Trump.
68. Bill Binney, a former top official at the National Security Agency (“NSA”),
was applauded by American media when he exposed widespread electronic surveillance
of American citizens nearly 20 years ago. Like Mr. Assange and Wikileaks, however, he
became a pariah to American journalists when he questioned the Russia Collusion Hoax.
Mr. Binney presented overwhelming scientific evidence that the DNC emails published
- 26 -
by Wikileaks were obtained from an internal leak versus an external hack. He will testify
that it was scientifically and technologically impossible for the Russians (or anyone else)
to have downloaded the DNC emails remotely via hack. Instead, both the metadata and
download time for the stolen emails indicate that they were downloaded onto a thumb
drive or something similar.
69. Larry Johnson is a retired officer of the Central Intelligence Agency. He and
Mr. Binney both observed in a February 14, 2019 article that while some U.S.
intelligence agencies reported “high” confidence that Russians hacked the DNC, the NSA
reported only “moderate” confidence. See “Why the DNC was not hacked by the
Russians,” https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2019/02/exclusive-cyber-security-experts-
release-damning-report-why-the-dnc-was-not-hacked-by-the-russians. As explained in
the article (incorporated herein by reference), the NSA's monitoring systems would have
collected an electronic record of any internet-based hack on the DNC, which in turn
would have prompted a “high” confidence conclusion by the NSA that Russians were
responsible for obtaining the emails. The absence of a “high” confidence conclusion
means there is no electronic record of a Russian hack on the DNC. Meanwhile, agencies
that expressed “high” confidence, like the FBI and CIA, have been implicated in
promoting the Russia Collusion Hoax, e.g., via the fraudulent dossier of Christopher
Steele.
70. Even after Mr. Wheeler filed suit against Mr. Butowsky, he alleged that Ms.
Brazille had improperly interfered in the Seth Rich investigation. In an August 2, 2017
interview on MSNBC, Mr. Wheeler alleged that interim DNC chairwoman Donna
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Brazile had called Joel and Mary Rich and asked why Mr. Wheeler was investigating the
murder. If Seth Rich died as the result of a “botched robbery,” Ms. Brazile should not
have cared one way or another whether the Rich family hired a private detective.
71. In recorded interviews and written reports, Mr. Wheeler stated that Aaron
Rich repeatedly told him not to investigate anything pertaining to Seth Rich's email
communications or his work at the DNC, and that Aaron Rich denied him access to Seth
Rich's computer and electronic devices.1 Mr. Wheeler further said Aaron Rich claimed
that he had already investigated the emails on his own, and Mr. Wheeler later
acknowledged that it was highly suspicious for Aaron Rich to prohibit any review of Seth
Rich's email communications and to prohibit interviews of Seth Rich's former co-
workers.
72. Aaron Rich's suspicious behavior continued after Mr. Wheeler was
terminated. Mr. Rich claimed that he was only seeking the truth when he filed suit against
Mr. Butowsky, but he refused to sign a waiver authorizing Wikileaks to reveal what it
knows about Seth Rich's involvement in the DNC email leaks. His attorneys subsequently
claimed that they would issue their own subpoena for Wikileaks. They have since
reneged, however, because they realized that Wikileaks would likely construe the
subpoena as a waiver, in which case it would likely release records showing that Aaron
Rich and Seth Rich were both responsible for leaking the DNC emails.
1 To be clear, Mr. Wheeler's statements about the Seth Rich investigation were accurate up
until Mr. Wigdor promised him $4 million to change his story. In other words, Mr. Wheeler
did find evidence that Mr. Rich leaked DNC emails to Wikileaks.
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73. Several analysts, including Mr. Johnson, have noted a glaring problem in the
DNC's timeline of the email “hack.” According to the DNC and CrowdStrike, Russian
hacking was detected on May 5, 2019, but CrowdStrike and DNC did not shut down the
DNC servers until more than a month later. If hackers had access to the system – as
opposed to a leaker within the DNC – then CrowdStrike never would have waited so long
to shut down the servers. Furthermore, the DNC never allowed outside investigators to
examine the servers that purportedly were hacked by Russian agents. As noted above,
Special Counsel Robert Mueller was forced to admit that his findings were based on a
redacted report from a third party.
74. There are other reasons to question the DNC version of events about the Seth
Rich murder. After the May 16, 2017 FoxNews.com article was retracted, the
Metropolitan Police Department (“MPD”) claimed that the FBI had never been involved
in the Seth Rich investigation, and the anti-Trump media trumpeted this claim as proof
that the Fox article was a fraud. In Aaron Rich's lawsuit against Mr. Butowsky, however,
he stated that he had been cooperating with “state and federal law enforcement officials”
to solve his brother's murder. Similarly, the FBI originally claimed that it had no
responsive documents about Seth Rich when records were requested in 2018. After
Plaintiff's Counsel sued the FBI pursuant to the Freedom of Information Act (“FOIA”),
counsel for the FBI asked the FBI to search for records in its Washington Field Office
(“WFO”) and with its Computer Analysis Response Team (“CART”). The FBI agreed to
search the WFO, and it responded that the WFO had offered assistance to the MPD
during the murder investigation and that MPD had declined the offer, but there were no
- 29 -
records of those communications. On the other hand, the FBI flatly refused to search for
responsive records in CART, even though CART is the most likely place to find any
pertinent email evidence. The FOIA lawsuit remains pending.
75. After this lawsuit was filed, and around the time that Attorney General
William Barr received authorization to declassify materials related to the RCH, the FBI
asked for an extension of time in the FOIA litigation referenced above. Counsel for the
FBI said the FBI had decided that it needed to produce additional documents. The
additional documents are scheduled to be produced not later than July 22, 2019.
Massey & Gail Defendants
76. On March 13, 2018, Defendants Leonard Gail, Eli J. Kay-Oliphant, Suyash
Agrawal filed Joel and Mary Rich v. Fox News Network, LLC, et al., Case No. 1:18-cv-
02223, in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. The suit alleged
that Mr. Butowsky, Ms. Zimmerman, and Fox News knowingly spread a fake narrative
about the death of Seth Rich, and that they did so for the purpose of causing harm to Joel
and Mary Rich. The Massey & Gail Defendants knew that Mr. Bauman had recruited
them as part of his larger scheme to silence Mr. Butowsky and anyone else who
threatened to expose the Russia Collusion Hoax. First, they knew that Joel Rich had
already admitted that his sons were responsible for leaking emails from the DNC.
Second, the same Defendants knew that there was (and is) no evidence that Mr.
Butowsky intended to harm the Rich family. Third, the same Defendants attempted to
file a defamation claim on behalf of a dead person (i.e., Seth Rich) by recharacterizing it
as a claim for intentional infliction of emotional stress. Any competent attorney would
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have known that such a claim was frivolous.
77. On the same day that lawsuit was filed, Defendant Bauman issued a press
release on behalf of himself, the Massey & Gail Defendants, and the law firm Susman
Godfrey that contained the following statement: “With disregard for the truth and for the
obvious harm that their actions would cause the Riches, Fox, Zimmerman and Butowsky
propagated and developed a fictitious story that their deceased son, Seth – not Russian
hackers or anyone else – provided Democratic National Committee emails to
WikiLeaks.” That sentence is false and defamatory and it is not attributed to the lawsuit,
therefore it is not privileged. Furthermore, the Defendants knew the statement was false,
and they knew their lawsuit was merely a sham that was designed to provide legal cover
for making such false statements about Mr. Butowsky. Contrary to the press release, Mr.
Butowsky did not disregard the truth nor any “obvious harm,” nor did he propagate or
develop a fictitious story.
78. In a March 15, 2018 interview with Andrea Mitchell on MSNBC, Defendant
Gail alleged that Mr. Butowsky and the other defendants “propagated a story that was
false” and acted with “utter disregard for the fact that the Riches were mourning the life
of their son.” He further said the defendants “had their own agenda and they moved
forward with something that was baseless.” At the time he made those statements, Mr.
Gail knew they were false, but he made the statement in order to advance the RCH and to
discredit Mr. Butowsky and his co-defendants.
79. On August 2, 2018, U.S. District Judge George B. Daniels dismissed Rich v.
Fox News Network, LLC for failure to state a claim in an order that can be found at 322
- 31 -
F.Supp.3d 487. That order is incorporated by reference. The Defendants filed and
prosecuted the case maliciously and in bad faith.
The Boies Schiller Defendants
80. On March 26, 2018, the Boies Schiller Defendants filed Aaron Rich v.
Edward Butowsky, et al., Case No. 1:18-cv-00681, on behalf of Aaron Rich in the U.S.
District Court for the District of Columbia. According to the lawsuit, Mr. Butowsky and
others defamed Aaron Rich by alleging that he helped his brother leak DNC emails to
Wikileaks. Like the other lawyer Defendants, the Boies Schiller Defendants knew that
Aaron Rich actually had assisted his brother in leaking DNC emails to Wikileaks, and
they knowingly joined Mr. Bauman's defamation / litigation conspiracy for the purpose of
keeping the RCH alive.
81. In a March 27, 2018 interview with Anderson Cooper on CNN regarding the
lawsuit, Mr. Gottlieb made false and defamatory allegations that:
(a) Mr. Butosky had said Aaron Rich “warned Seth Rich's girlfriend to break up with
him.” In reality, Mr. Butowsky never said such a thing.
(b) Mr. Butosky “made up a meeting that purportedly occurred at the DNC” where
Aaron Rich puroportedly threw a chair. In reality, Mr. Butowksy never said such a
thing.
(c) Mr. Butowsky's statements about Aaron Rich and Seth Rich were fabricated , i.e.,
“all of this, all of it, is made up.” Elsewhere, Mr. Gottlieb said, “It's made up –
there is no money in Aaron Rich's account” and it's a “complete fabrication.”
(d) Mr. Butowsky spread a conspiracy theory “as far as possible” to “make money off
of it” from t-shirt sales, etc. In reality, Mr. Butowsky has never spread a
conspiracy, and he never made nor sought to make a penny from Seth Rich, Aaron
Rich, or any conspiracy theory.
(e) After Aaron Rich asked for a retraction, Mr. Butowsky and the other defendants
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purportedly “doubled down on the lies they were telling.” In reality, Mr.
Butowksy never told any lies about Seth Rich or Aaron Rich.
Before filing this lawsuit, Mr. Butowsky asked Defendant Gottlieb to retract the false
allegations above, but he refused.
82. On May 30, 2018, Plaintiff's Counsel asked Defendant Governski if her client,
Aaron Rich, would authorize Wikileaks to reveal what it knew about whether he and his
brother were involved in leaking emails. In an email sent at 3:14 p.m., he wrote:
I’ve attached a preservation letter that I sent to eBay and PayPal, and I have also
attached a proposed waiver for your client. Julian Assange / Wikileaks likely will
not cooperate unless your client consents to the release of information. Please let
me know if he is willing to consent. Thanks.
Ms. Governski responded at 4:27 p.m.:
We believe the appropriate mechanism for obtaining information from third

parties is to serve subpoenas to those third parties as contemplated under the
Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. Those rules do not require any advance waiver
from any party in order to serve or enforce such a subpoena. If any third party has
a request to make of our client as a result of a subpoena, we will address those
requests directly with those third parties rather than through opposing counsel.
At 8:12 p.m. Plaintiff's Counsel replied as follows:
Yes, but as a practical matter, Julian Assange, Kim Dotcom, and Wikileaks are
beyond U.S. jurisdiction. Furthermore, Assange and Wikileaks have shown that
they will not be coerced into revealing the identity of their sources. It is for that
reason that I am asking your client to voluntarily waive any objections to the
release of such information. If you are saying your client is unwilling to do that, I
think the media (and the public) will find that very interesting.
Ms. Governski did not respond, so Plaintiff's Counsel sent a letter via fax and email at
7:51 a.m. on June 1, 2018 to her, Mr. Gottlieb, and a third lawyer at the firm, Randall
Jackson:
I write concerning your client’s pleadings in the case identified above. According
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to Fed. R. Civ. P. 11(b), an attorney’s signature on the pleadings is certification

that he or she has performed “an inquiry reasonable under the circumstances” to
determine the accuracy and propriety of those pleadings.
As you know, Ms. Governski and I have exchanged emails about whether your
client, Aaron Rich, is willing to voluntarily authorize Wikileaks, Julian Assange,
and/or Kim Dotcom to discuss any relationship that they may have had with Mr.
Rich or his brother, Seth Rich. Thus far, it appears that your client is unwilling to
authorize such disclosures.
This is very telling. On the one hand, Mr. Rich boldly denies that he and/or his
brother leaked DNC emails to Wikileaks. On the other, he refuses to authorize
disclosures from the witnesses who are in the best position to know who leaked
those emails. That begs a question: if your client has nothing to hide, why is he
hiding it?
Under Rule 11(b), you have a duty to answer that question. Furthermore, you
should ask your client some pointed questions about what funds may have been
transferred to him or his brother through eBay accounts. And you should remind
him that every trip to a safe deposit box is recorded on video and preserved.
If the evidence leads where we expect it to lead, my client will aggressively seek
sanctions against Mr. Rich and everyone else responsible for bringing meritless
claims. Thank you for your attention to this matter.
At 3:20 p.m. that afternoon, Plaintiff's Counsel received an email notifying him that
Defendants Gottlieb and Governski were serving a subpoena seeking records from
Twitter, including private communications from the Twitter Account of Plaintiff's
Counsel. In other words, Defendants Gottlieb and Governski tried to use a subpoena to
obtain privileged communications from their opposing counsel. After that stunt received
negative media attention, they withdrew the subpoena.
83. In a bizarre and angry five-page letter sent on June 2, 2018 (a Saturday
morning), Defendant Gottlieb offered the following rationale for refusing to authorize
Wikileaks to disclose what it knew about the Riches involvement in email leaks:
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[P]roviding such a waiver would create precisely the impression you claim we are
seeking to avoid. Namely, the mere act of granting a waiver to disclose
communications to these third parties could create an impression that there exist
communications that could or should be disclosed, and that is especially so if you
were to follow through on your threat of disclosing such information to the media.
Defendant Gottlieb nonetheless wrote that he would be issuing subpoenas to third parties
such as Wikileaks. On June 22, 2018, Defendant Governski wrote in an email that
subpoenas would need to be served on Wikileaks, Julian Assange and Kim Dotcom via
letters rogatory, and that she was working on that process. The subpoenas were not
issued, however, so Plaintiff's Counsel sent a news article to Defendant Governski on
August 20, 2018 noting that a federal court had authorized service of a DNC lawsuit
against Wikileaks via Twitter. Defendant Gottlieb responded with baseless accusations
that Plaintiff's Counsel was practicing law in D.C. without a license. (Defendant Gottlieb
subsequently filed a fraudulent grievance against Plaintiff's Counsel with the State Bar of
Texas, but that grievance was dismissed after Plaintiff's Counsel submitted proof that
Defendant Gottlieb had knowingly omitted exculpatory evidence from his grievance).
84. More than a year after the issue was first raised, and despite repeated inquiries
from Plaintiff's Counsel, no subpoenas have been issued to Wikileaks, Julian Assange, or
Kim Dotcom by Defendants Governski or Gottlieb. Contrast that with the fact that
Defendants Governski and Gottlieb issued a subpoena within a matter of hours for the
private communications of Plaintiff's Counsel. The reason for this disparity is
straightforward: Defendants Governski and Gottlieb know that if Mr. Butowsky issues a
subpoena to Wikileaks, the subpoena will be ignored pursuant to its policies for
protecting sources. If, however, Defendants Governski and Gottlieb issue a subpoena to
- 35 -
Wikileaks on behalf of Aaron Rich, Wikileaks will likely construe that as a waiver of
confidentiality, in which case the damning emails would finally be released. That's the
last thing they want, so they have reneged on their earlier statements about issuing their
own subpoenas.
85. In an October 1, 2018 story published by Vox, a statement from Ms.
Governski is quoted as stating that the defendants – to include Mr. Butowsky – are
“conspiracy theorists who spread malicious lies for personal and political gain.” Ms.
Governski is further quoted as saying, “We will continue our efforts against the
remaining defendants, who to this day continue to spread unconscionable lies about
Aaron in order to advance their false political narratives.” On the contrary, Mr. Butowsky
is not a conspiracy theorist, and he has not spread any lies – unconscionable or otherwise
– nor has he done so for personal or political gain. In fact, Ms. Governski cannot point to
any statements that Mr. Butowksy made about Aaron Rich after his lawsuit was filed –
false or otherwise – thus she knew that she was lying about Mr. Butowsky in her
statement to Vox.
The Bailey & Glasser Defendants
86. On May 21, 2018, the Bailey & Glasser Defendants filed a ludicrous
defamation lawsuit against Mr. Butowsky (and others) on behalf of Defendant Bauman.
Like the other lawyer Defendants in this case, the Bailey & Glasser Defendants had
knowingly and intentionally joined Mr. Bauman in the DNC's overarching scheme to
keep the RCH alive by defaming, discrediting, and bullying Mr. Butowsky into silence.
87. The Bailey and Glasser Defendants alleged that Mr. Butowsky defamed Mr.
- 36 -
Bauman when he repeated what Joel Rich had said, i.e., that the DNC had “assigned” Mr.
Bauman to speak for the Rich family. They also alleged that Mr. Butowsky defamed Mr.
Bauman when, responding to Mr. Bauman's accusation that he lied, Mr. Butowsky
countered that Mr. Bauman had lied.
88. On March 29, 2019, U.S. District Judge Richard J. Leon dismissed Mr.
Bauman's absurd lawsuit. See Bauman v. Butowsky, 377 F. Supp. 3d 1 (D.D.C. 2019).
That opinion is incorporated herein by reference. No competent attorney would have
thought that Mr. Bauman had a legitimate claim against Mr. Butowsky, and the Bailey &
Glasser Defendants knew the lawsuit was frivolous when they filed it.
The CNN Defendants
89. For more than two years, Defendant CNN and its employees have shamelessly
promoted the RCH, and they have repeatedly tried to demonize and discredit anyone who
questioned the DNC narrative about the murder of Seth Rich. During that period, CNN
has generally portrayed Mr. Butowsky as an unscrupulous political activist who
knowingly and maliciously concocted and spread false stories in conjunction with Fox
News and Malia Zimmerman.
90. Notwithstanding the fact that Mr. McCabe was fired from the FBI on March
16, 2018 for lying to federal investigators, and not withstanding the fact that he is the
subject of at least two criminal investigations, Defendant CNN hired him as an on-air
commentator so he could continue promoting the RCH on its programs. No fair-minded
journalism company would hire Mr. McCabe, but then CNN is more of a partisan
infotainment enterprise than a journalism company. The CNN Defendants named herein
- 37 -
know that the Russian collusion narrative is false, and they specifically know that the
Russian hacking narrative is false, but they continue to promote false stories in order to
keep the RCH alive. Mr. McCabe still works for Defendant CNN as of the date of this
filing.
91. A March 14, 2018 story attributed to Defendant Darcy states that Mr.
Butowsky and his co-defendants had been sued for “their roles in the publication of a
baseless conspiracy theory about Rich's 2016 death.” A May 21, 2018 story attributed to
Defendant Darcy implicated Mr. Butowsky as someone “who pushed unfounded claims
and theories about Rich's death,” and an October 1, 2018 article impugned Mr. Butowsky
for “peddling a conspiracy theory” without “real evidence.” Prior to the publication of
the March 14, 2018 story, however, Mr. Butowsky spoke with Defendant Darcy by
telephone and emailed him evidence (including the evidence found at
DebunkingRodWheelersClaims.com) to show that there was reason to believe that Seth
Rich was involved in the DNC email leak. Defendant Darcy ignored all of that evidence
– and falsely claimed there was no evidence – because he was more interested in
promoting the Russian Collusion narrative.
92. The top of the March 14, 2018 CNN web story is linked to a propaganda
video produced by Defendant Kludt, a left-wing political activist who masquerades as a
journalist. In the video, Defendant Kludt falsely states that there is no evidence that Mr.
Rich leaked emails to Wikileaks: “It's never been supported by any evidence,” Defendant
Kludt claims. “The question is this: Will the Seth Rich lie ever disappear?” Defendant
Kludt also refers to people who question the official “botched robbery” narrative as
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“conspiracy theorists.” The clear purpose of Defendant Kludt's propaganda video is to
discredit and smear anyone who dares to question the DNC narrative, and it is tied
directly to Defendant Darcy's web story about Mr. Butowsky. In other words, Defendant
Kludt and Defendant Darcy jointly and intentionally misrepresented Mr. Butowsky as a
liar and a crackpot conspiracy theorist. Like Defendant Darcy, Defendant Kludt was
aware of the considerable evidence that Mr. Butowsky was telling the truth.
93. In a March 27, 2018 story on Anderson Cooper 360 about Aaron Rich's
against Mr. Butowsky, Defendant Tuchman flatly stated that there was no evidence
whatsoever that Seth Rich leaked DNC emails to Wikileaks. “There wasn't any evidence
at all – it was all made up,” he said, further describing it as a “conspiracy theory
concocted by right-wing commentators.” As the anchor of the show bearing his name,
Defendant Cooper decided to broadcast Defendant Tuchman's defamatory statements.
Prior to March 27, 2018, Defendant Tuchman and Defendant Cooper knew that there was
considerable evidence that Mr. Rich was involved in the email leak, and they knew that
Mr. Butowsky had not “made up” or “concocted” anything. Neither of them attempted to
speak with Mr. Butowsky before broadcasting their false allegations against him,
however, and that's because they were willing to sacrifice the truth in order to promote
the RCH narrative.
94. The March 27, 2018 story featured the interview of Defendant Gottlieb
described in Paragraph 62 above, and Mr. Butowsky was mentioned by name more than
once. Unsurprisingly, Defendant Cooper never pushed back on any of Defendant
Gottlieb's allegations, no matter how false or outrageous. Instead, Defendant Cooper
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endorsed those statements, directly implying that Mr. Butowsky and his co-defendants
were responsible for “promoting unfounded claims that Seth Rich was tied to the DNC
hacking.” In another statement, Defendant Cooper directly implied that Mr. Butowsky
was responsible for traumatizing Joel and Mary Rich because of “[having their son] being
accused of stuff that there's no evidence of.” In yet another, Mr. Cooper alleged that Mr.
Butowsky and his co-defendants had been involved in spreading “lies.”
95. As set forth above, the CNN Defendants knew not later than 2017 that Mr.
Wheeler was lying about Mr. Butowsky, Ms. Zimmerman, and Fox News, and they knew
that Mr. Butowsky had not fabricated anything. They also knew as of that date that there
was at least some evidence that Mr. Rich was involved in leaking DNC emails (even if
they found contrary evidence more convincing). After all, Mr. Assange had publicly
identified Mr. Rich as the source of the leaks as far back as late 2016. Notwithstanding
this, the CNN Defendants continued to impugn Mr. Butowsky with false allegations that
there was “no evidence” of Seth Rich's involvement, further alleging that Mr. Butowsky
had knowingly spread a false story for malign purposes. In other words, the CNN
Defendants knowingly made defamatory statements about Mr. Butowsky.
96. Defendant Governski formerly served as a spokeswoman for Defendant CNN.
The Plaintiff alleges that she enlisted the CNN Defendants in the larger scheme to defame
and discredit Mr. Butowsky with false allegations. As #Resistance “journalists,” the CNN
Defendants were all too willing to smear Mr. Butowsky in order to keep the RCH alive.
97. On February 02, 2019, Mr. Butowsky (through counsel) requested retractions
from Defendants CNN, Cooper, Tuchman, Darcy, and Kludt. In a letter dated February
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15, 2019, CNN Vice President and Asst. General Counsel Johnita P. Due wrote that no
retractions would be forthcoming. “CNN has reported that the claims Mr. Butowsky has
made about Seth Rich's connection to the Democratic National Committee (DNC) hack
are 'baseless,' 'unfounded,' and 'without real evidence,” she confirmed. “Indeed, there is a
very long list of official sources who have either directly or indirectly said the claims
about Seth Rich are not true.” She then parroted the predictable list of statements by
Obama Administration officials, the office of Special Counsel Robert Mueller, and MPD.
“In other words,” she wrote, “the claims made by Mr. Butowsky are unfounded, baseless
and not supported by real evidence – exactly as CNN reported.”
98. As evidenced by Ms. Due's letter, leftists and American media have come full
circle with respect to trusting the government and its intelligence agencies. In the 1970s,
they hailed the work of Senator Frank Church and his Select Committee to Study
Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, which exposed
widespread corruption and impropriety in the CIA, FBI, and NSA, some of which dated
back to the 1950s. Now, leftists and American media have blind faith in those same
agencies, at least as long as they are under the control of their leftist allies.
Defendants Vox and Coaston
99. On April 19, 2018 and October 1, 2018, Defendant Vox published defamatory
articles written by Defendant Coaston, a left-wing extremist who masquerades as a
journalist. Defendant Coaston openly advertises her left-wing politics in her articles and
in her Twitter feed, and until 2016 she worked for left-wing activist groups rather than
media organizations. Both of Ms. Coaston's articles conveyed the false overall impression
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that Mr. Butowsky had lied repeatedly and abused the trust of the Rich family for
purposes of advancing a fraudulent narrative. In her April story, Defendant Coaston
alleged that “the Riches’ story isn’t just about conspiracy theorists — it’s about a
conspiracy of Fox News contributors who concocted a lie while purporting to be trying to
find Seth’s killer.” There was no conspiracy, however, and there was no lie. For the
reasons set forth above, Ms. Coaston knew at the time she wrote the articles that there
had been no conspiracy among Fox News contributors, and she knew that they had not
“concocted a lie.”
100. Defendant Coaston further wrote that “[d]espite Butowsky’s repeated
questions about payments from WikiLeaks (which didn’t exist), Joel and Mary repeatedly
told both Zimmerman and Butowsky that the conspiracy theories about their son were
'baseless,' and provided Zimmerman with information about Seth’s life for stories she
said she was writing.” In reality, neither Joel nor Mary Rich told Mr. Butowsky that
claims of their sons' involvement with Wikileaks were “baseless.” Instead, Joel Rich told
Mr. Butowsky that he knew his sons were involved in the leak.
101. The April 19, 2018 story by Defendant Coaston included numerous other
false and defamatory allegations, including the following excerpt:
Wheeler stated later that he received text messages that day from Butowsky telling
him what to say in media interviews:
• “If you can, try to highlight this puts the Russian hacking story to rest”
• “We need to emphasize the FBI has a report that has been suppressed that
shows that Seth rich [sic] did this...”
But none of this was true. As would be revealed just a few days later, Wheeler had
never said that there was any emailing between Seth Rich and WikiLeaks, and
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everything he’d heard had been from Butowsky and Zimmerman. “I’ve never, ever
seen Seth Rich’s computer, nor have I talked with the federal investigator.” And
there was no FBI investigation, either — the FBI had never even seen Seth’s
laptop.
In short, Butowsky and Zimmerman had worked with Rod Wheeler, told him the
FBI had information about Seth Rich’s alleged connection with WikiLeaks, and
then set him loose — with absolutely no proof. In fact, when Joel Rich demanded
a retraction, Zimmerman told him (according to Wheeler, under direction from
Fox producers) that the details about their son’s (completely false) WikiLeaks ties
had come from Wheeler — whom Butowsky and Zimmerman had been working
with all along.
Most of the foregoing excerpt is false and defamatory, and Ms. Coaston knew it was false
at the time she made the allegations. As set forth above, it was already a matter of public
record in 2017 that Mr. Wheeler had lied about Mr. Butowsky, Ms. Zimmerman, and Fox
News. Mr. Wheeler did say that emails were exchanged between Seth Rich and
Wikileaks, and he said so in a televised interview. Furthermore, Mr. Butowsky did not
“set loose” Mr. Wheeler with “no evidence.”
102. Elsewhere in the April 18, 2019 article, Defendant Coaston wrote, “As
recently as this month, far right media articles are still being shared detailing how Joel
Rich told Butowsky that he was aware Seth had leaked the emails — all of which is
false.” It was not and is not false, and Defendant Coaston's allegations to the contrary are
defamatory. Defendant Coaston ended the story with the following paragraph: “But by
challenging how the story of their son’s murder was manipulated by people who wormed
their way into their inner circle — even gaining access to their religious community —
the Riches could shine a light on the darkest underbelly of the conservative media
apparatus.” Contrary to the inferences in that paragraph, Mr. Butowsky did not
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manipulate anything, nor did he “worm” his way into the Riches inner circle or religious
community (much less for purposes of propagating a false story).
103. The October 1, 2018 story by Defendant Coaston was comparably malicious
and false. She wrote:
...Fox News ran a story, 'Slain DNC Staffer Had Contact with WikiLeaks, Say
Multiple Sources.” A second story, also published May 15, said that Wheeler was
the source. But none of this was true — in fact, the only people who had told
Wheeler about WikiLeaks contacts or an FBI investigation (also a part of the
original, and false, story) were Butowsky and Fox News investigative reporter
Malia Zimmerman.
The foregoing paragraph is utterly false, and Defendant Coaston knew it was false at the
time she wrote her article. As noted above, Mr. Wheeler had previously admitted in a
television interview that he confirmed Seth Rich's role in the DNC leak using his own
sources. Furthermore, Mr. Wheeler's frivolous lawsuit had been dismissed almost two
months before Ms. Coaston wrote the October 1, 2018 article. The story itself notes that
Mr. Wheeler's lawsuit had been dismissed, yet Defendant Coaston repeated the false
allegations as if they were true. In other words, she knowingly and maliciously defamed
Mr. Butowsky.
104. The October 1, 2018 story by Defendant Coaston also contains the following
false and malicious paragraphs:
In the retracted Washington Times story, Butowsky is also mentioned: “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.” But this was a lie.
...And for Aaron, it would only get worse. Butowsky and Matthew Couch, who
began working together on the Seth Rich story in the summer of 2017, would go
on to defame Aaron Rich’s character and argue that he was partially responsible
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for his only brother’s murder, even after Fox News distanced itself from its own
false reporting on the Rich family.
...They also claimed that Aaron had refused to talk to law enforcement and stated
that Aaron had known Seth would be murdered and had done nothing to stop it,
aside from warning Seth’s girlfriend to break up with Seth for her own safety. (To
be crystal clear, none of this happened.)
Contrary to the excerpt above, Mr. Butowsky never told a “lie” about Joel Rich's
admission that his sons were involved in the leak, nor did Mr. Butowsky state that Aaron
Rich was “partially responsible for his only brother’s murder.” Finally, Mr. Butowsky
never “claimed that Aaron had refused to talk to law enforcement and stated that Aaron
had known Seth would be murdered and had done nothing to stop it, aside from warning
Seth’s girlfriend to break up with Seth for her own safety.” Ms. Coaston knowingly lied
when she attributed these statements to Mr. Butowsky.
105. Even though Defendant Coaston knew that the allegations against Mr.
Butowsky (and particularly Rod Wheeler's allegations against Mr. Butowsky) were false,
she never contacted Mr. Butowsky or tried to get his side of the story. That's because she
was more interested in advancing the RCH narrative than reporting the truth. On
February 1, 2019, Mr. Butowsky (through counsel) asked Defendants Vox and Coaston to
retract the false statements in the April 19, 2018 and October 1, 2018 articles. In an
arrogant and condescending reply dated February 8, 2019, attorney Jeremy A. Chase of
Davis Wright Tremaine LLP wrote that Defendants Vox and Coaston would not retract
anything. He also went a step further, stating that the contents of the articles “are
demonstrably true.” He will now be forced to prove that to a jury. The April 19, 2018 and
October 1, 2018 still appear on the Vox website, and the Defendants' refusal to retract or
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correct those articles is further proof of actual malice. See Gonzales v. Hearst Corp., 930
S.W.2d 275, 283 (Tex. App.—Houston [14th Dist.] 1996, no writ)(“Refusal to print a
retraction is evidence of an action after the publication, but it can lend support to a claim
that reckless disregard or knowledge existed at the time of publication”)(emphasis in
original).
Defendants The New York Times and Fauer
106. In an August 2, 2018 article written by Defendant Fauer and published in
Defendant NYT, Defendant Fauer cherry-picked quotes from a court order for the
purpose of creating a false impression. Defendant Fauer wrote that “[i]n his dismissal of
the lawsuit [filed by Joel and Mary Rich], Judge George B. Daniels said he sympathized
with Mr. Rich's parents, but added that they had not been personally defamed by the story
– despite the fact that it included 'false statements or misrepresentations.'” Elsewhere, the
story reports that Mr. Butowsky was intimately involved in developing this story that
purportedly included “false statements or misrepresentations.” In reality, Judge Daniels
never made a factual finding that the story included “false statements or
misrepresentations.” Judge Daniels's order was premised on Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6), and
the order plainly states that under that rule, “a court 'accept[s] all factual allegations in the
complaint as true ... and draw[s] all reasonable inferences' in favor of the plaintiff.” Rich
v. Fox News Network, LLC, 322 F. Supp. 3d 487, 498 (S.D.N.Y. 2018), citing Holmes v.
Grubman, 568 F.3d 329, 335 (2d Cir. 2009). Throughout the order, Judge Daniels made
it very clear that he was merely restating the allegations in the Rich's complaint. In one
sentence, for example, Judge Daniels wrote that “the only conduct that Plaintiffs
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specifically attribute to Fox News relates to its publication of articles and news reports
containing allegedly false statements.” Id. at 501 (emphasis added). Nowhere in the order
did Judge Daniels make a factual finding that the story included “false statements or
misrepresentations,” and that's because the Fox story did not contain any “false
statements or misrepresentations.”
107. The August 2, 2018 story also included the following quote from the order:
“It is understandable that plaintiffs might feel that their grief and personal loss were taken
advantage of, and that the tragic death of their son was exploited for political purposes.”
In context, however, it is clear that the foregoing statement is premised on the
assumption that the Rich's complaint was true. Elsewhere Defendant Fauer wrote, “Judge
Daniels dismissed the accusations against [Mr. Butowsky and Malia Zimmerman], as
well, saying that even though the story they had put together was untrue, their behavior
did not meet the legal standard of 'extreme and outrageous conduct.'” Again, Judge
Daniels made no such statement that “the story they had put together was untrue.” He
never reached that issue, nor could he have reached it under Rule 12(b)(6).
108. A paragraph toward the end of the August 2, 2018 article is similarly
misleading about the significance of the order:
Mr. Wheeler and his partners at Fox news had “embarked on a collective effort to
support a sensational claim regarding Seth Rich's murder,” Judge Daniels wrote.
Mr. Wheeler, the judge concluded, “cannot now seek to avoid the consequences of
his own complicity and coordinated assistance in perpetuating a politically
motivated story not having any basis in fact.”
The foregoing paragraph omits the fact that because Judge Daniels was ruling on a 12(b)
(6) motion, he was not and could not make any factual findings. Judge Daniels was ruling
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only on Mr. Wheeler's complaint (and Mr. Wheeler had effectively plead himself out of
court). Defendant Fauer's story, however, created the false impression that Judge Daniels
made factual findings adverse to Mr. Butowsky.
109. Defendant Fauer normally covers court proceedings for Defendant NYT and
he knew that Rule 12(b)(6) dismissals are not factual findings, yet he deliberately
misrepresented Judge Daniels's order. Like the New York Times itself, Mr. Fauer is a
partisan leftist who detests President Trump, and he knowingly smeared Mr. Butowsky
because of his perceived affiliation with President Trump. Mr. Butowsky (through
counsel) asked Defendants Fauer and NYT to correct or withdraw the defamatory
statements in a letter dated February 6, 2019, but they refused. The Defendants' refusal to
retract or correct those articles is further proof of actual malice. See Gonzales, 930
S.W.2d at 283.
Claims
Defamation
110. All previous paragraphs are incorporated herein by reference.
111. Mr. Butowsky brings defamation claims against all Defendants because they
or their agents published or conspired with others to publish false and defamatory
statements about Mr. Butowsky as described above. Mr. Butowsky does not assert
defamation claims based on allegations made in Aaron Rich v. Edward Butowsky, et al.
112. The defamation claims against Defendants Bauman, The Pastorum Group,
Gail, Oliphant, Agrawal, and Massey & Gail LLP arise under New York law.
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Business Disparagement
114. Mr. Butowsky brings business disparagement claims against all Defendants
because they or their agents published or conspired with others to publish false and
defamatory statements that caused harm to Mr. Butowsky's business and profession. As
set forth in the attached Folkenflik complaint, Mr. Butowsky's work is regulated by the
Securities and Exchange Commission, and allegations of fraud or dishonesty can cost
him his professional licenses. Likewise, the Defendants allegations of fraud and
dishonesty have cost him the trust (and business) of approximately one third of his
clients. Mr. Butowsky does not assert business disparagement claims based on
allegations made in Aaron Rich v. Edward Butowsky, et al.
Malicious Prosecution
116. Mr. Butowsky brings malicious prosecution claims against Defendants
Bauman, The Pastorum Group, Gail, Oliphant, Agrawal, and Massey & Gail LLP under
New York law because they or their agents conspired to prosecute and did prosecute Joel
and Mary Rich v. Fox News Network, LLC, et al., Case No. 1:18-cv-02223 (S.D.N.Y.)
with malice and without probable cause.
117. Mr. Butowsky brings malicious prosecution claims against Defendants
Bauman, The Pastorum Group, Gregory Y. Porter, Michael L. Murphy, and Bailey &
Glasser LLP under District of Columbia law because they or their agents conspired to
prosecute Brad Bauman v. Edward Butowsky, et al., Case No. 1:18-cv-01191 (D.D.C.)
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with malice and without probable cause.
New York Judiciary Law § 487
119. Mr. Butowsky brings claims under New York Judiciary Law § 487 against
Defendants Bauman, The Pastorum Group, Gail, Oliphant, Agrawal, and Massey & Gail
LLP because they or their agents engaged in deceit and collusion.
Civil Rights Violations
120. All previous paragraphs are incorporated by reference.
121. Mr. Butowsky brings claims against Defendants Gottlieb, Governski, Boies
Schiller Flexner LLP, Bauman, The Pastorum Group, Gail, Oliphant, Agrawal, Massey &
Gail LLP, Gregory Y. Porter, Michael L. Murphy, and Bailey & Glasser, LLP under 42
U.S.C. §1983, 42 U.S.C. §1985(3), and Bivens v. Six Unknown Named Agents, 403 U.S.
388 (1971). The foregoing Defendants conspired with government actors to violate the
equal protection rights of the Plaintiff and to inhibit his right of access to the courts as
guaranteed by the Article IV Privileges and Immunities Clause, the First Amendment
Petition Clause, and the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendment Due Process Clauses.
Civil Conspiracy
122. All previous paragraphs are incorporated by reference.
123. Defendants Gottlieb, Governski, Boies Schiller Flexner LLP, Bauman, The
Pastorum Group, Gail, Oliphant, Agrawal, Massey & Gail LLP, Gregory Y. Porter,
Michael L. Murphy, and Bailey & Glasser LLP participated in an overarching conspiracy
to defame, discredit, intimidate, and silence Mr. Butowsky, and they are fully liable for
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one another's torts and statutory violations.
Request for Relief
The Plaintiff respectfully prays that upon a final hearing of this case, judgment be
entered for him against the Defendants, for damages in an amount within the
jurisdictional limits of the Court; together with pre-judgment interest at the maximum
rate allowed by law; post-judgment interest at the legal rate; back pay; costs of court;
attorney fees; and such other and further relief to which the Plaintiff may be entitled at
law or in equity.
THE PLAINTIFF DEMANDS A JURY TRIAL.
Respectfully submitted,
/s/ Ty Clevenger
Ty Clevenger
Texas Bar No. 24034380
P.O. Box 20753
Brooklyn, New York 11202-0753
(979) 985-5289
(979) 530-9523 (fax)
tyclevenger@yahoo.com
Attorney for Plaintiff Edward Butowsky
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Case 4:19-cv-00180-ALM-KPJ Document 62-1 Filed 07/15/19 Page 1 of 80 PageID #: 1291
Exhibit 1
Case 4:19-cv-00180-ALM-KPJ
Case 4:18-cv-00442 Document
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IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

FOR THE EASTERN DISTRICT OF TEXAS
SHERMAN DIVISION
ED BUTOWSKY, in his Individual )

And Professional Capacities )
)
Plaintiff, )
)
v. ) Case No.
)
) TRIAL BY JURY
DAVID FOLKENFLIK ) IS DEMANDED
NPR, INC. )
NPR.ORG )
JARL MOHN )
STACEY FOXWELL )
MICHAEL ORESKES )
CHRISTOPHER TURPIN )
EDITH CHAPIN )
LESLIE COOK )
HUGH DELLIOS )
PALLAVI GOGOI )
)
-and- )
)
SARAH GILBERT )
)
Defendants. )
)
COMPLAINT
Plaintiff, Ed Butowsky, in his personal and professional capacities, by counsel,
files the following Complaint against Defendants, David Folkenflik (“Folkenflik”), NPR,
Inc. and NPR.org (“collectively, “NPR”), Jarl Mohn (“Mohn”), Stacey Foxwell
(“Foxwell”), Michael Oreskes (“Oreskes”), Christopher Turpin (“Turpin”), Edith Chapin
(“Chapin”), Leslie Cook (“Cook”), Hugh Dellios (“Dellios”), Pallavi Gogoi (“Gogoi”)
and Sarah Gilbert (“Gilbert”), jointly and severally.
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Plaintiff seeks (a) compensatory damages and punitive damages in a sum not less
than $57,000,000.00, (b) prejudgment interest on the principal sum awarded by the
Jury from August 1, 2017 to the date of Judgment at the rate of five percent (5%) per
year, and (c) costs – arising out of the Defendants’ defamation per se, business
disparagement, civil conspiracy, and intentional infliction of emotional distress.
I. INTRODUCTION
This is a case about an unethical and reckless journalist, who was spoon-fed a
false narrative about President Trump and Fox News with instructions to leak the fake
story online and in social media in the early morning hours of August 1, 2017.
The four (4) foundational principles of ethical journalism are:
● Seek Truth and Report It;
● Minimize Harm;
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● Act Independently; and
● Be Accountable and Transparent.
[https://www.spj.org/pdf/spj-code-of-ethics.pdf; see id., http://asne.org/resources-ethics-
wapo; http://asne.org/resources-ethics-wsj; http://asne.org/resources-ethics-nyinteg;
http://asne.org/resources-ethics-sananton; http://asne.org/resources-ethics-dallas].
NPR keeps and maintains an “ethics handbook”, which states that NPR’s
“purpose is to pursue the truth. Diligent verification is critical.” NPR publicly represents
that its goal is to “tell the truest story possible”. The NPR ethics handbook emphasizes:
NPR admits that “errors of omission and partial truths can inflict great damage”.
[http://ethics.npr.org/].
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The evidence in this case demonstrates that Folkenflik – a journalist renowned for
his bias against the Fox News Network (“Fox”) – knowingly, intentionally and recklessly
violated every principle of ethical journalism when, acting in concert and conspiracy with
Douglas H. Wigdor (“Wigdor”), he published and republished false and defamatory
statements that harmed an innocent citizen, Plaintiff, Ed Butowsky.
Between August 1, 2017 and September 19, 2017, Folkenflik and NPR published
no less than six (6) articles in which they made and repeated false and defamatory
statements, including the following statements:
● Fox News’ May 16, 2017 story, “Seth Rich, slain DNC staffer, had contact
with WikiLeaks, say multiple sources” was “baseless”;
● Fox and Butowsky “worked in concert under the watchful eye of the
White House to concoct a story” about the death of Seth Rich;
● The Fox News story was a “fake news story”;
● The Fox News story was a “deceptive story”;
● “Despite his misgivings, Wheeler plays along” with the fake news
promoted by Butowsky and Zimmerman;
● “Revelations about Fox News’ role in concocting a baseless story on the
death of a young Democratic staffer has problematic echoes for the network’s controlling
owner, Rupert Murdoch”;
● Ed Butowsky was the “Man Behind The Scenes In Fox News’ Discredited
Seth Rich Story”;
● “Butowsky displays no curiosity about the way Fox’s reporting and his
activities affected the very people [the Rich Family] he says he sought to help.”
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● “Fox News was compelled to retract the story, which involved presidential
politics, international intrigue and a man’s murder. When a story of this scale crumbles,
most news organizations feel obligated to explain what happened and why. Not so far at
Fox … In the four months since its retraction, Fox News has not apologized for what it
reported. Nor has it explained what went wrong”;
● “Lesson No. 1: Investigative reports should be ironclad” – the Fox
story was “groundless”;
● “Lesson No. 2: Make sure your sources are saying what you think
they're saying” – “Before the story ran, Zimmerman sent Wheeler a draft with quotes
she intended to attribute to him. NPR has seen a transcript of the texts from Zimmerman
calling his attention to that email. But there’s zero evidence Wheeler ever said those
words or gave permission for her to use them. And if Zimmerman did invent the quotes,
that’s a big problem – regardless of whether Wheeler gave her the green light”;
● Lesson No. 3: Make sure each of your sources can stand on its own” –
“Butowsky fed tips to Wheeler and Zimmerman, the Fox reporter, as he sought to link the
dead man to the leaked emails instead of hackers working on behalf of the Russians”;
● “And that leads us to lesson No. 4” – Transparency and Trust - “Fox
withheld Butowsky’s various roles in the story from its audiences — he blurred lines
between benefactor, source, player and, possibly, even reporter”.
Folkenflik and NPR acted with actual malice and reckless disregard for the truth.
Hungry to publish a scandalous story about the President of the United States and Fox
and to aid and abet Wigdor’s effort to extort money from Fox, Folkenflik failed to verify
the information Wigdor secretly provided before releasing it on NPR.org, to NPR’s radio
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listeners via Morning Edition, and to millions upon millions via Twitter. In spite of
serious doubts as to the veracity of his source, Folkenflik blindly accepted Wigdor’s false
statements without ever once questioning Wigdor’s (and his client, Rod Wheeler’s),
motive to lie. Folkenflik disregarded known sources of information that flatly
contradicted the false narrative peddled by Wigdor. In promoting Wigdor’s story,
Folkenflik misrepresented, distorted and oversimplified facts and issues. Folkenflik
failed to gather, update and correct information throughout the life of his story, allowing
the false narrative to build momentum and take on a life of its own. Folkenflik engaged
in baseless stereotyping and allowed his (and Wigdor’s) extreme bias to shape his
reporting. Folkenflik published and republished the story in such a way and to such
audiences and extremes as to maximize the insult, pain, humiliation and embarrassment to
Ed Butowsky. Folkenflik pandered to lurid curiosity about the President and fake news
about “Russian collusion”, rather than tell the truth.
The United States Supreme Court recognizes that “The right of a man to the
protection of his own reputation from unjustified invasion and wrongful hurt reflects no
more than our basic concept of the essential dignity and worth of every human being—a
concept at the root of any decent system of ordered liberty”. Rosenblatt v. Baer, 383 U.S.
75, 92-93 (1966).
This is not a case about the First Amendment or “freedom” of the press – for no
man has the right to defame and disparage another. 1
1
The Supreme Court of the United States has recognized “[t]ime and again”
that “false factual statements possess no First Amendment value.” United States v.
Alvarez, 132 S.Ct. 2537, 2560 (2012). Thus, any attempt by Folkenflik and NPR to hide
behind the “First Amendment” is unavailing.
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This is a case about Folkenflik and NPR’s actual malice and reckless disregard for
the truth.
II. PARTIES
1. Plaintiff, Ed Butowsky (“Butowsky”), is a citizen of Texas. Butowsky is
55 years-old. He resides with his family in Plano, Texas. He has a long history of
generously helping people in need. Butowsky is an internationally recognized expert in
the investment wealth management industry. He has been in the financial services
industry for over twenty-nine (29) years. He started his career with Morgan Stanley,
where he was a Senior Vice President in private wealth management. In his eighteen (18)
years with Morgan Stanley, Butowsky was the firm’s top producer nationally as well as
the first advisor to surpass one billion dollars in assets under management. He was
recognized as a member of both the Chairman’s Club and the Equity Club at Morgan
Stanley, a distinction reserved for only the firm’s top advisors. In 2005, Butowsky
launched Chapwood Investments, LLC, an Addison, Texas-based, private wealth
management advisory firm focused on providing comprehensive financial counseling and
investment advice to wealthy families and individuals. He was nominated as Top
Financial Advisor in the World by Reuters in 2007. Through his work with professional
athletes, Butowsky was prominently featured in both the ESPN Movie, Broke
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1IhmiE_Hs0I], and the blockbuster Sports
Illustrated article, “How (and Why) Athletes Go Broke”.
[https://www.si.com/vault/2009/03/23/105789480/how-and-why-athletes-go-broke].
2. Prior to Folkenflik and Wigdor’s publications and republications,
Butowsky was a frequent guest on CNN, ABC, CBS, NBC, CNBC, Fox Business News,
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FOX News Channel, Bloomberg TV, and China TV. Butowsky had made hundreds of
appearances on national television, and was often seen on “Varney and Co”, “Closing
Bell”, “Street Signs”, “Your World w/ Cavuto”, “America Live” with Megyn Kelly,
“Willis Report”, “America’s News HQ”, “Taking Stock” with Pimm Fox, TheBlaze TV
with Glenn Beck, and “Wilkow!” with Andrew Wilkow. He was also regularly heard on
radio shows around the country such as “Mad Dog Radio” and “Bloomberg Radio”,
discussing wealth management, and other subjects that are of interest and timely related
to the finance/investments world.
3. Prior to Folkenflik and Wigdor’s global smear campaign, Butowsky
enjoyed an untarnished personal and professional reputation in the community in which
he lived and worked, with clients, with colleagues in business, and with his many friends.
As was known and intended, Folkenflik’s defamation spread like wildfire throughout
mass media, social media and over the Internet, causing Butowsky to be ostracized,
causing enormous loss of business (including, without limitation, the termination and loss
of Chapwood’s Investment Manager Service Agreement with Charles Schwab), 2 and
2
The loss and damage caused to Butowsky by Folkenflik’s defamation is
evidenced by the following email from one of Butowsky’s clients:
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causing Butowsky substantial personal injury, fear, and mental and physical pain and
suffering. Butowsky has received death threats to his family, damage to his home in
Plano, and thousands of ad hominem attacks.
4. Defendant, Folkenflik, is a citizen of New York, who lives in New York
City. Folkenflik is a media correspondent on NPR’s Business Desk. The vast majority
of Folkenflik’s reporting involves Fox and stories about sexual harassment, sexual
misconduct and related issues. At all times relevant to this action, Folkenflik was an
employee of Defendant, NPR, Inc., acting within the scope of his employment.
[https://www.npr.org/people/4459112/david-folkenflik].
5. Defendant, NPR, Inc., is a District of Columbia non-stock corporation
with headquarters and principal places of business in Washington, D.C., California and
New York. NPR describes itself as a “mission-driven, multimedia news organization and
radio program producer.” NPR produces news, talk, music and entertainment programs.
NPR also distributes programs produced by member stations and independent producers
under the NPR brand. NPR claims that it “sets the standard for trusted editorial content”.
NPR transacts substantial business in Texas. It maintains and operates multiple domestic
bureaus in Texas and at least thirty-five-member stations in Texas. Defendant, NPR.org,
is one of NPR’s digital properties. NPR.org is an online publication that is owned and
operated, upon information and belief, by NPR. [https://www.npr.org/about-
npr/192827079/overview-and-history; https://www.npr.org/stations/pdf/nprstations.pdf;
https://www.npr.org/about/press/NPR_Fact_Sheet.pdf].
6. Defendants, Mohn, Foxwell, Oreskes, Turpin, Chapin, Cook, Dellios,
Gogoi and Sarah Gilbert, are individual officers, editors, producers and publishers
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employed by NPR who, together with Folkenflik, created, contributed, edited, published,
instigated, directed and ratified the defamation at issue in this action. A general
description of each individual Defendant’s position at NPR is published online [see
https://www.npr.org/series/6000/people-at-npr?typeId=1] and on their respective public
profiles published on LinkedIn.com. [See, e.g. https://www.linkedin.com/in/jarlmohn/].
Mohn is President, CEO and a Director of NPR. Foxwell is Vice President of Operations
at NPR. She oversees an administrative team of executive assistants and operations
managers that support NPR's senior leadership team, its shows, its hosts, and its offices in
NY, where Folkenflik works. Oreskes was Senior Vice President of News and Editorial
Director at NPR. Oreskes quit NPR in November 2017 amid sexual harrassment and
misconduct allegations. [https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/01/business/media/mike-
oreskes-npr-sexual-harassment.html]. At all times relevant to this action, Turpin was
Vice President of News Programming and Operations, where he oversaw all news
programs, newscasts, news operations, collaborative coverage, innovation in news
storytelling and training, “ensuring NPR's continued excellence across a range of
journalistic skills.” Chapin is the Executive Editor of NPR News, charged with
overseeing all desks and reporters and setting the agenda for the entire News division.
Cook is a senior business editor on NPR’s Business Desk. In this role, he assigns and
edits NPR business reporters, including Folkenflik, and collaborates with show producers
and editors on host interviews. Dellios is NPR’s deputy national editor. He fashions
NPR’s coverage of national issues, overseeing a staff of 13 correspondents, reporters, and
editors and coordinating with editors and producers on NPR desks and shows such as
Morning Edition. Gogoi is the Senior Business Editor for NPR’s Business Desk. At all
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times relevant to this action, Gilbert was the Executive Producer for NPR’s Morning
Edition. The individual NPR officers, editors, producers and publishers are citizens of
the District of Columbia, New York and California, respectively. None of the individual
NPR Defendants is a citizen of Texas.
7. NPR’s reach and engagement is extensive: On air, NPR reaches 30.2
million weekly listeners through more than 1,000 public radio stations. Online, NPR.org
attracts a growing audience of 36.9 million unique monthly users.
[http://nationalpublicmedia.com/npr/audience/].
8. Wigdor lives in New York. He is a partner of Wigdor, LLP. Wigdor,
LLP is a public relations firm that masquerades as a law firm. Although Wigdor is an
attorney, the clear majority of his time is spent in front of cameras or giving interviews to
MSNBC, CNBC, CNN, the New York Times, Bloomberg Businessweek, and many other
main stream media outlets, in which Wigdor promotes himself and his causes, especially
his “crusade” against Fox. Wigdor’s war against Fox is featured front and center on
Wigdor’s website and on his YouTube channel – “Wigdor LLP – Employment Lawyer
NYC” – where he collects and publishes sound bites and personal praise.
[https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCeogDStcI35nkzCJYNatVBQ].
9. Wigdor claims to be a specialist in sexual harassment and assault cases.
His website, inter alia, notes that he has represented “over 20 employees at Fox News in
their claims of gender discrimination, race discrimination, retaliation and defamation
against the network”. [https://www.wigdorlaw.com/portfolio/douglas-h-wigdor/]. As
part of the “Publicity” he has created for himself, Wigdor’s website represents that:
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“Mr. Wigdor currently represents thirteen clients who have alleged racial
discrimination against Fox. Mr. Wigdor also represents Rod Wheeler, a Fox
contributor in an ‘explosive’ lawsuit alleging defamation in connection with a
story published about murdered DNC staffer Seth Rich, Scottie Nell Hughes, a
former Fox contributor in a lawsuit alleging retaliation after she complained of
sexual assault by Fox Business host Charles Payne, and Lydia Curanaj, a Fox5
reporter in a lawsuit alleging gender and pregnancy discrimination against Fox
News. The lawsuits join a succession of sexual harassment allegations made
against Fox, and have been extensively reported on by both national and
international media and referred to as a ‘Normandy like’ legal assault.”
[Id.].
10. Wigdor uses the press and social media as weapons. He brazenly litigates
his causes outside the courtroom in the “court of public opinion” as part of a “press
strategy” to intimidate and coerce settlements. Wigdor often grants in-depth access to a
single reporter from a prominent news outlet, on the condition that the story be
embargoed until the day a suit is filed, when it can be set off like a firecracker.
11. This action involves a conspiracy between Folkenflik and Wigdor to
publish and republish false and defamatory statements about Butowsky as part of
Wigdor’s effort to extort Fox. Wigdor selected Folkenflik and deliberately leaked a false
narrative to Folkenflik because Wigdor knew that Folkenflik harbored bias and animus
towards Fox and its Chairman, Rupert Murdoch. Widgor correctly surmised that
Folkenflik would never question or doubt Wigdor’s veracity. 3 Folkenflik gladly accepted
the “scoop” from Wigdor and published fake news with reckless indifference to the
consequences of his actions as a “journalist”.
3
The selection of Folkenflik for leaking the false and defamatory
statements was no coincidence. Wigdor knew that Folkenflik had been a vocal critic of
Fox News for years, even writing a book about the network and its Chairman, Rupert
Murdoch, entitled, “Murdoch's World: The Last of the Old Media Empires.”
[https://www.npr.org/2013/10/21/238899506/inside-murdochs-world-a-peek-into-a-
media-empire].
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III. JURISDICTION AND VENUE
12. The United States District Court for the Eastern District of Texas has
subject matter jurisdiction over this action pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1332 (Diversity
Jurisdiction) and 28 U.S.C. § 1367 (Supplemental Jurisdiction). The parties are citizens
of different States and the amount in controversy exceeds the sum or value of $75,000,
exclusive of interest, costs and fees.
13. The Defendants are subject to general and specific personal jurisdiction in
Texas. They transact substantial business in Texas and committed multiple acts of
defamation and intentional torts, in whole or part, in Texas. They have minimum
contacts with Texas such that the exercise of personal jurisdiction over them comports
with traditional notions of fair play and substantial justice and is consistent with the Due
Process clause of the United States Constitution. Defendants’ defamation was
purposefully directed at Texas and was continuous and systematic. Butowsky’s claims
directly arise from and relate to Defendants’ publication of false and defamatory
statements in Texas. TV Azteca v. Ruiz, 490 S.W.3d 29 (Tex. 2016) (citing Keeton v.
Hustler Magazine, Inc., 465 U.S. 770 (1984) and Calder v. Jones, 465 U.S. 783 (1984)).
14. Venue is proper in the Sherman Division of the United States District
Court for the Eastern District of Texas because Folkenflik and NPR and their agents
published and republished defamatory statements to a wide audience that includes
persons who reside within the Sherman Division. Folkenflik and NPR’s defamation
caused substantial harm to Butowsky’s personal and professional reputations in Texas. A
substantial part of the events giving rise to the claims stated in this action occurred in the
Eastern District of Texas.
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IV. STATEMENT OF MATERIAL FACTS
15. At all times relevant to this action, Folkenflik had actual knowledge that
his written and oral statements about Butowsky were false. He knew Butowsky did not
collude with the President of the United States or with Fox to publish “fake news”.
Indeed, at the time he published his false statements, Folkenflik had not seen any
evidence that the President even knew Butowsky.
16. Folkenflik also knew that Butowsky did not support any effort by Fox
(because there was none) to fabricate and falsely attribute quotations to Wheeler –
indeed, Folkenflik knew – actually knew – that Wheeler had been accurately quoted by
Fox. In his reporting, Folkenflik deliberately misrepresented and concealed known facts,
including the fact (a) that Fox reporter, Malia Zimmerman (“Zimmerman”) had shared
drafts of her article with Rod Wheeler (“Wheeler”) on May 15, 2017, and (b) Wheeler
had approved the exact quotations that appeared in Zimmerman’s article.
17. Before he published his first online article on August 1, 2017 at 7:23 a.m.,
Folkenflik possessed information that should have caused him to disbelieve the
preconceived false narrative supplied to him by Wigdor.
18. The truth was well-known to Folkenflik – not only from Wheeler’s text
messages and emails (described in detail below) in Folkenflik’s possession, but from
public records (videos in which Wheeler and others, including Seymour Hersh, 4
4
Seymour Hersh (“Hersh”) is a well-known journalist. Hersh first came to
national prominence in 1969, when he helped expose the massacre of Vietnamese
civilians in the village of My Lai. More recently, Hersh revealed the U.S. military’s
torture of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison in 2004. In 2014, Hersh debunked
Western propaganda that sought to justify a major U.S. military attack on Syria.
[http://samadamsaward.ch/seymour-hersh/]. In 2017, Hersh supplied key information to
Zimmerman concerning Seth Rich and WikiLeaks. [See below].
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appeared) and from other information and recordings available to Folkenflik on the
Internet (all described in detail below). The true facts were also available to Folkenflik
on and through the website, http://www.debunkingrodwheelersclaims.com/. Although
Wigdor told Folkenflik that Fox and Butowsky had fabricated quotations that Fox and
Butowsky then falsely attributed to Wheeler, Folkenflik knew (a) that Wheeler had made
the statements publicly on camera on May 15, 2017 to Fox 5 DC correspondent, Marina
Marraco (“Marraco”), (b) that Wheeler had actually confirmed the quotations three (3)
times to Zimmerman on May 15, 2017 in emails and text messages, (c) that Wheeler had
affirmed the substance of the quotations in interviews with Sean Hannity and Lou Dobbs
on May 16, 2017, and (d) that Wheeler had actually told FetchYourNews on May 22,
2017 that Zimmerman’s story was “essentially correct”. (Emphasis added). Based upon
information in his possession, Folkenflik knew that his statements about Butowsky were
categorically false.
19. Instead of reporting the truth, Folkenflik abandoned his ethics and went
with a preconceived story – a story manufactured and supplied to him by his source –
Wigdor – a source that was admittedly on a “crusade” to get Fox. Folkenflik abandoned
all journalistic integrity. He failed to investigate the true facts. He relied on inherently
unreliable and debunked sources, such as Wigdor’s client and source, Wheeler.
Folkenflik departed from journalistic standards and repeated words and phrases that he
knew were false or inherently improbable – phrases such as “Russian collusion”.
Folkenflik abandoned common sense. The suggestion that the President of the United
States and/or the “Russians” (Vladimir Putin) would have colluded with Butowsky – a
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person unknown to either the President or Putin and with whom neither the President nor
Putin has ever communicated – is preposterous.
20. Folkenflik knew that Wigdor’s preconceived narrative was false.
Folkenflik, who hated Fox and craved the notoriety of salacious “breaking news”, had a
motive to publish a false narrative about Fox. In spite of known and obvious reasons to
doubt the veracity of Wigdor and Wheeler, Folkenflik and NPR proceeded with the
preconceived story without verification and without hesitation.
A. THE PRECONCEIVED FALSE NARRATIVE
21. As of June 2017, Wigdor had filed and/or had threatened to file numerous
lawsuits against Fox, including, without limitation,
● Ujkic v. Twenty-First Century Fox, Inc. et al., Case 1:16-cv-09608

(filed 12/13/2016);
● Brown et al. v. Twenty-First Century Fox, Inc. et al., Case 22446/2017E

(filed 03/28/2017);
● Blanco v. Twenty-First Century Fox, Inc. et al., Case 1:17-cv-03017

(filed 04/25/-2017);
● Lee v. Twenty-First Century Fox, Inc. et al., Case 1:17-cv-03835

(filed 05/22/2017)
● Farrow v. Twenty-First Century Fox, Inc. et al., Case 1:17-cv-03836

(filed 05/22/2017)
● Hughes v. Twenty-First Century Fox, Inc. et al., Case 1:17-cv-07093

(filed 09/18/2017)
● Gollohor v. Twenty-First Century Fox, Inc. et al., Case 1:17-cv-08232

(filed 10/25/2017)
(the “Wigdor Discrimination Suits”).
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22. Prior to June 23, 2017, in anticipation of a mediation of the Wigdor
Discrimination Lawsuits, Wigdor prepared a draft of a complaint against Fox,
Zimmerman and Butowsky.
23. Wigdor intentionally included in the draft document salacious, scandalous
and impertinent allegations about the President, “fake news”, and Russian collusion.
Wigdor drafted the pleading solely for its shock effect. Wigdor intended to use the draft
document to extort a global settlement of the Wigdor Discrimination Suits from Fox at
the mediation.
24. The draft document included the false statement stated that Zimmerman,
“with knowledge and support of Butowsky, fabricated two quotations and attributed them
to Mr. Wheeler:
● ‘My investigation up to this point shows there was some degree of email
exchange between Seth Rich and Wikileaks,’ said Wheeler.’
● ‘My investigation shows someone within the DC government, Democratic

National Committee or Clinton team is blocking the murder investigation
from going forward,’ Wheeler said. ‘That is unfortunate. Seth Rich’s
murder is unsolved as a result of that.’”
25. The draft document made multiple additional false and defamatory
statements of fact of and concerning Butowsky, including:
● Butowsky said the statements were falsely attributed to Wheeler because

“that is the way the President wanted the article”.
● Zimmerman, Butowsky and Fox had created fake news to advance

President Trump’s agenda.
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● Butowsky and Zimmerman were not simply Good Samaritans attempting

to solve a murder. 5 Rather, they were interested in advancing a political
agenda for the Trump Administration.
● Specifically, it was Butowsky and Zimmerman’s aim to have Wheeler

confirm that: (i) Seth Rich was responsible for the leak of DNC emails to
WikiLeaks; and (ii) Seth Rich was murdered by a Democrat operative
because he leaked the emails to WikiLeaks.
● Butowsky and Zimmerman were not in this alone. Rather, they colluded
with Sean Spicer, Steve Bannon 6 and Sarah Flores to shift the blame for
the DNC hacks from the Russians to Seth Rich in order to undermine
reports of collusion between Russia and the Trump Administration.
● President Trump wanted Zimmerman’s article published to help lift the

cloud of the Russia investigation.
● Simultaneous with baseless claims of nonpartisanship to British

regulators, Fox was contriving with Butowsky and members of the Trump
Administration to publish and disseminate fake news to affect politics in
America.
● Because of Fox and Butowsky’s “devious scheming” British regulators

have yet to provide a green light to Fox for the Sky takeover bid, and
many U.K. politicians question whether Fox is capable of news
dissemination in a fair and neutral manner.
● In falsely quoting Wheeler, Butowsky and Zimmerman attempted –

through the publication of fake news – to accomplish what they had set
out to do from the start: “solve the problem about Russians are the ones
that gave the emails” and establish that “there was no collusion like trump
with the Russians.”
5
Butowsky was not trying to solve the murder of Seth Rich. The Rich
family engaged Wheeler – not Butowsky or Fox – to help solve the murder. Wheeler is
the one who investigated the matter and came up with the theory that Seth Rich’s murder
was not the result of a botched robbery. In one of his texts to Zimmerman, Wheeler
stated that “I’m ready to say that Seths Death was not a botched robbery and there
appears to be a coverup within the D.C. Govt related to his death”. These are
Wheeler’s words. Wheeler is the one who told Fox 5 DC reporter, Marina Marraco, on
camera on May 15, 2017 that he had sources at the FBI who said there is information that
could link Seth Rich to WikiLeaks. “Absolutely, yeah, and that’s confirmed”. These
are Wheeler’s own words.
6
Butowsky has not spoken with Steve Bannon in three (3) years. Wigdor
and Wheeler simply made this up to further their false narrative that the White House and
the President were involved. Folkenflik never bothered to interview Bannon.
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● Butowsky planned to extort Seymour Hersh in an effort to save the May

16, 2017 Seth Rich story.
● Wheeler had to backtrack on his statements to Zimmerman because he

never made the statements to begin with.
26. During the last week of July 2017 – after Fox refused to accede to
Wigdor’s outrageous demands and the mediation failed – Wigdor secretly met with
Folkenflik to discuss publication of the scandalous false narrative.
27. Wigdor did the unimaginable: he leaked a false narrative to a media
correspondent prior to commencement of a judicial proceeding with the intent that that
correspondent publish the false story as fact. Folkenflik was Wigdor’s firecracker.
B. FOLKENFLIK PUBLISHED THE PRECONCEIVED FALSE NARRATIVE
28. At 7:23 a.m. on August 1, 2017 – before any courts were open –
Folkenflik published an online article entitled, “Behind Fox News' Baseless Seth Rich
Story: The Untold Tale”. [https://www.npr.org/2017/08/01/540783715/lawsuit-alleges-
fox-news-and-trump-supporter-created-fake-news-story (the “Folkenflik Article”)]. The
Folkenflik Article appears on NPR.org as follows:
29. Folkenflik’s August 1, 2017 Article makes and republishes a number of
false and defamatory statements about Butowsky, including:
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● Fox News’ May 16, 2017 story, entitled “Seth Rich, slain DNC staffer,
had contact with WikiLeaks, say multiple sources”, was “baseless”;
● Fox and Butowsky “worked in concert under the watchful eye of the
White House to concoct a story” about the death of Seth Rich;
● The Fox News story was a “fake news story”;
● The Fox News story was a “deceptive story”;
● Wheeler did “not make great headway” in his investigation of the murder
of Seth Rich. 7 “The FBI informs Butowsky, 8 Wheeler and Zimmerman that the agency is
not assisting the Washington, D.C., police on the investigation – undercutting claims
about an FBI report.”
● On May 11, 2017, Fox News reporter, Malia Zimmerman, “sends Wheeler
a draft of her story … It includes no quotes from Wheeler”; 9
7
In making this statement, Folkenflik intentional and recklessly disregarded
Wheeler’s texts to Butowsky and Zimmerman. Folkenflik knew that Wheeler claimed he
had, in fact, made great headway in his murder investigation. Wheeler expressly
represented that it was not a botched robbery, that there was a “cover-up” in the DC
Government, and that the Democratic National Committee (the “DNC”) and Aaron Rich,
in fact, were blocking the investigation.
8
Folkenflik knew that the FBI did not inform Butowsky that the agency
was not assisting the DC police. Folkenflik also knew from an audio recording published
on July 11, 2017 that there was an FBI Report and that the FBI Report confirmed that
Seth Rich made contact with WikiLeaks in the “late spring”, “early summer” of 2016,
offered an extensive sample of emails from the DNC, and said “I want money”.
[https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/892510925244203008?lang=en (Audio-tape of
statement from Seymour Hersh); https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=giuZdBAXVh0
(Audio at 4:02)].
9
This is a half-truth – a fraudulent misrepresentation of the facts.
Folkenflik intentionally omitted the fact that Zimmerman sent Wheeler three (3) drafts of
her story on May 15, 2017 – the day before the Fox News story ran – that contained the
exact same quotations that Widgor and Wheeler would claim that Fox and Butowsky had
made up out of whole cloth. In support of his preconceived storyline, Folkenflik chose to
publish an Article that was laden with half-truths and intentionally misleading.
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● “Zimmerman’s online story … cites Wheeler, incorporating two key
quotations from Wheeler that do not appear on video. In each, the private investigator
seemingly takes ownership of the accusations”;
● “Zimmerman issues instructions for Wheeler’s appearance on Sean
Hannity’s show later that evening. ‘Reread the story we sent you last night [that
contained the invented quotes] and stick to the script,’ she texts Wheeler.”
● “Despite his misgivings, 10 Wheeler plays along” with the fake news
promoted by Butowsky and Zimmerman.
30. In support of the preconceived storyline, Folkenflik’s article quotes
Wigdor as follows:
31. Folkenflik’s Article misrepresents that Wigdor had “filed” the lawsuit. In
truth, Wigdor filed the complaint after leaking and publishing it to Folkenflik and after
Folkenflik and NPR had already dropped the “bombshell NPR report” on the entire
world.
10
Prior to and through publication of Zimmerman’s article on May 16, 2017,
Wheeler expressed no “misgivings” at all and he did not “play along” with anything. In
fact, he voluntarily offered Zimmerman quotations. Wheeler approved the quotations in
writing. As was fully disclosed in and by public record available to Folkenflik, and,
upon information and belief, reviewed by Folkenflik and/or his editors and publishers,
Wheeler only back-tracked on his quotations after being threatened with litigation by the
Rich family. Folkenflik intentionally misrepresented and distorted the truth in order to
support the scandalous preconceived story about the President, Fox and Butowsky.
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C. THE BREADTH OF PUBLICATION AND REPUBLICATION OF THE

FALSE NARRATIVE IS LIKE NOTHING EVER SEEN BEFORE
32. The Folkenflik Article was viewed by millions of subscribers to NPR.org.
[See https://www.npr.org/about/press/NPR_Fact_Sheet.pdf (The total number of monthly
unique visitors to NPR.org is 36.8 million. Monthly visits to NPR Digital Properties,
including NPR.org and NPR apps exceeds 114.4 million)].
33. Folkenflik’s Article, including the false narrative and preconceived
defamatory statements fed to Folkenflik by Wigdor, was republished over and over,
hundreds of times, with no fact-checking whatsoever, by other main stream and
alternative media outlets and online newspaper publishers. [See, e.g.,
https://www.mediaite.com/online/fox-news-published-fabricated-quotes-in-seth-
rich-conspiracy-according-to-lawsuit/;
http://kut.org/post/behind-fox-news-baseless-seth-rich-story-untold-tale;
http://www.wbur.org/npr/540783715/lawsuit-alleges-fox-news-and-trump-
supporter-created-fake-news-story;
http://keranews.org/post/behind-fox-news-baseless-seth-rich-story-untold-tale;
https://ww2.kqed.org/forum/2017/08/02/lawsuit-claims-white-house-
involvement-in-discredited-fox-news-story/;
http://boisestatepublicradio.org/post/lawsuit-alleges-fox-news-and-trump-
supporter-created-fake-news-story#stream/0;
https://www.opb.org/news/article/npr-behind-fox-news-baseless-seth-rich-story-
the-untold-tale/;
http://kzyx.org/post/behind-fox-news-baseless-seth-rich-story-untold-
tale#stream/0;
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http://www.wvia.org/blogs/npr-news/lawsuit-alleges-fox-news-and-trump-
supporter-created-fake-news-story/;
http://www.cpr.org/news/npr-story/behind-fox-news-baseless-seth-rich-story-the-
untold-tale;
http://wglt.org/post/lawsuit-alleges-fox-news-and-trump-supporter-created-fake-
news-story#stream/0;
https://wfpl.org/behind-fox-news-baseless-seth-rich-story-the-untold-tale/;
https://www.wmfe.org/behind-fox-news-baseless-seth-rich-story-the-untold-
tale/76249;
https://news.wbhm.org/npr_story_post/2017/behind-fox-news-baseless-seth-rich-
story-the-untold-tale/;
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr-esq/fox-accused-lawsuit-publishing-
fake-news-at-donald-trumps-behest-1025708;
https://www.reddit.com/r/washingtondc/comments/6qw5z6/from_npr_behind_fox
_news_baseless_seth_rich_story/?st=jc3nc6qp&sh=f8c35be4;
https://newrepublic.com/article/144200/meet-reporter-driving-fox-newss-biggest-
craziest-stories;
https://www.memeorandum.com/170801/p30#a170801p30;
https://www.si.com/tech-media/2017/12/10/best-journalism-writing-reporting-
2017-media-circus;
http://es.redskins.com/topic/414681-npr-behind-fox-news-baseless-seth-rich-
story-the-untold-tale/;
https://thinklab.com/content/510254;
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https://muckrack.com/davidfolkenflik/articles;
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/fox-news-white-house-seth-
rich_us_59809958e4b0d6e28a10cb6e;
https://mediaequalizer.com/brian-maloney/2017/08/cnn-gleefully-exploits-
bizarre-lawsuit-filed-against-fox-news;
https://www.mediamatters.org/video/2017/08/01/CNNs-Brian-Stelter-explains-
how-new-Seth-Rich-report-shows-the-connections-between-Fox-and/217471]. Mediaite
called the Folkenflik article a “bombshell NPR report”:
34. In addition to the online Article, NPR simultaneously broadcast and
republished Folkenflik and Wigdor’s false and defamatory statements in a different
format – to its radio audience on Morning Edition.
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35. The NPR radio broadcast was heard by millions of people across the
Country. [See https://www.npr.org/about/press/NPR_Fact_Sheet.pdf (Weekly Listeners
for all NPR Stations is 37.7 million. Weekly Listeners for NPR Programming and
Newscasts is 30.2 million)].
D. FOLKENFLIK USED TWITTER TO AMPLIFY THE DEFAMATION
36. At the same time Folkenflik’s Article was published online at NPR.org
and broadcast live on NPR Radio, Folkenflik republished the false and defamatory
statements to a new target audience – his 75,100 followers on Twitter.
37. Folkenflik’s August 1, 2017 tweet states:
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38. Folkenflik’s tweet, with the attached Article, was retweeted 5,220 times
and was liked 7,124 times on August 1, 2017 alone.
39. Folkenflik’s Article was republished on Twitter millions of times to
Butowsky’s detriment. On August 1, 2017, prior to 12:00 p.m. Noon (EST) alone, the
Article was tweeted (i.e. published) by the following persons and many others:
● NPR Politics – 2,930,748 followers
● audie cornish (Host of NPR’s All Things Considered) – 120,241 followers
● Donna Brazile – 657,492 followers
● Muckmaker – 67,438 followers
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● Puppymnkey – 142,686 followers
● Michael Weiss (Senior Editor for the Daily Beast) – 103,206 followers
● Andy Kroll (Reporter for Mother Jones) – 16,921 followers
● Zeke Miller (AP, BuzzFeed, Etc.) – 206,497 followers
● Caroline O (Shareblue Media) – 311,000 followers. “Caroline O”,
writer/editor for anti-Trump “media” outlet, Shareblue Media, 11 like most others,
believed and repeated the false narrative peddled by Folkenflik and Wigdor:
11
Shareblue Media is a progressive news website owned by political activist,
David Brock (“Brock”). Brock also operates Media Matters for America, an organization
that publishes misinformation for the DNC.
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40. One of the persons who republished (i.e., retweeted) Folkenflik’s tweet
was Brian Stelter (“Stelter”), host of CNN’s @ReliableSources and senior media
correspondent for CNN. Stelter had 552,000 followers on Twitter as of August 1, 2017.
Stelter retweeted Folkenflik’s Article to his 552,000 followers, stating:
41. Donna Brazile – former Chair of the DNC – had 657,500 Twitter
followers on August 1, 2017:
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Ms. Brazile republished Folkenflik’s Article to her 657,500 followers, adding the
following comments:
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42. Brad Bauman (“Bauman”) – a consultant and spokesperson assigned to the
Rich family by the DNC – republished Folkenflik’s Article to his 3,127 Twitter
followers, feigning that the Article left him “speechless”:
43. One of the broadest republications of the Folkenflik Article occurred when
“Muckmaker” tweeted the Article to his 67,000 followers:
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Muckmaker republished the Folkenflik Article multiple times on August 1, 2017,
including the following:
44. One of Muckmaker’s followers is Soledad O’Brien (“O’Brien”), the CEO
of Starfish Media Group (“SMG”). SMG claims to be a multi-platform media production
and distribution company, dedicated to uncovering and investigating empowering stories
that look at the often-divisive issues of race, class, wealth, poverty, and opportunity
through personal narratives. [https://www.starfishmediagroup.com/. O’Brien had
796,570 Twitter followers on August 1, 2017:
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Within minutes of receiving Muckmaker’s tweet at 5:29 p.m., and without conducting
any due diligence or fact-checking, O’Brien republished Muckmaker’s tweet:
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O’Brien blindly accepted Folkenflik’s representations as if they were true. O’Brien’s
reaction to Folkenflik’s false statements typifies the impact the false statements about
Butowsky had on most readers.
45. On August 1, 2017, Widgor retweeted (republished) Folkenflik’s tweet
and Stelter’s tweet to Wigdor’s 400 followers. Wigdor’s retweets were then retweeted
and liked thousands of times, e.g.:
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46. In addition to Twitter, Wigdor republished the Folkenflik article to his 112
public Facebook followers. [https://www.facebook.com/WigdorLaw/]. Publication of the
article made it accessible by all 2 Billion+ Facebook users. Wigdor’s Facebook posts
were “liked” and “shared” by multiple third-parties. Wigdor even thanked “Super
Lawyers” for highlighting his cause and republishing his false and defamatory statements
on Super Lawyers’ Facebook page:
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47. After August 1, 2017, Folkenflik gave further interviews in which he
continued to push the false narrative created by Wigdor and Wheeler. Folkenflik told
Mediaite columnist John Ziegler that “Butowsky’s narrative is ‘inconsistent’”. Without a
shred of evidence, Folkenflik also falsely stated that “collaboration” between Butowsky
and the President “is still a plausible assumption with the current evidence.”
[https://www.mediaite.com/online/david-folkenflik-very-hard-to-rule-out-white-house-
involvement-in-seth-rich-conspiracy/].
E. FOLKENFLIK AND NPR PUBLISHED MORE FALSE STATEMENTS
48. On August 7, 2017, Folkenflik and NPR published additional false and
defamatory statements about Butowsky in an article/broadcast entitled:
[https://www.npr.org/2017/08/07/542087047/fox-news-seth-rich-story-echoes-previous-
problems-for-owner-rupert-murdoch (the “August 7 Article”)].
49. Folkenflik’s August 7, 2017 Article/broadcast contained the following
false statements:
● “Revelations about Fox News’ role in concocting a baseless story on the
death of a young Democratic staffer has problematic echoes for the network’s controlling
owner, Rupert Murdoch”;
● Fox was involved in a “journalistic scandal” over the Seth Rich story;
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● Fox “concocted” the story “in order to help President Trump”. 12
50. On August 16, 2017, Folkenflik and NPR published a photograph of
Butowsky beneath the caption:
https://www.npr.org/2017/08/16/543830392/the-role-of-ed-butowsky-in-advancing-
retracted-seth-rich-story (the “August 16 Article”).
51. The August 16 Article contains the following false statements:
12
Read together with the Folkenflik Article, the overall tenor and context of
Folkenflik’s messages was that Butowsky lied, was dishonest and aided, abetted and
actively participated in a fraudulent journalistic scandal.
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● Ed Butowsky was the “Man Behind The Scenes In Fox News’
Discredited 13 Seth Rich Story”;
● “Butowsky displays no curiosity about the way Fox’s reporting and his
activities affected the very people [the Rich Family] he says he sought to help.”
52. On September 15, 2017, Folkenflik and NPR published an article, entitled:
https://www.npr.org/2017/09/15/551163406/fox-news-has-yet-to-explain-what-what-
wrong-in-seth-rich-story (the “September 15 Article”)].
53. Folkenflik’s September 15 Article makes the following false statements:
● “Fox News was compelled to retract the story, 14 which involved
presidential politics, international intrigue and a man’s murder. When a story of this
scale crumbles, most news organizations feel obligated to explain what happened and
why. Not so far at Fox … In the four months since its retraction, Fox News has not
apologized for what it reported. Nor has it explained what went wrong”.
13
In truth, the Fox News story has never been discredited, except because of
Folkenflik’s false reporting and Wigdor and Wheeler’s baseless claims on television.
Folkenflik’s August 16 Article creates the false impression that Butowsky has no
compassion, sympathy or understanding, indeed Folkenflik implies that Butowsky does
not care whether his “activities” affected the Rich family. This imputes to Butowsky an
ill-will and spite towards the Rich family that is patently false.
14
Fox was not “compelled” to retract the story. The story never
“crumble[d]”. Nothing “went wrong”. These intentionally false statements typify
Folkenflik’s unethical and misleading reports.
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● “Lesson No. 1: Investigative reports should be ironclad” – the Fox
story was “groundless”;
● “Lesson No. 2: Make sure your sources are saying what you think
they're saying” – “Before the story ran, Zimmerman sent Wheeler a draft with quotes
she intended to attribute to him. NPR has seen a transcript of the texts from Zimmerman
calling his attention to that email. But there’s zero evidence Wheeler ever said those
words or gave permission 15 for her to use them. And if Zimmerman did invent the
quotes, that’s a big problem – regardless of whether Wheeler gave her the green light.
‘It's very easy to lead a witness,’ Bettag says. ‘It's a dirty rotten thing to do’”;
● Lesson No. 3: Make sure each of your sources can stand on its own” –
“Butowsky fed tips 16 to Wheeler and Zimmerman, the Fox reporter, as he sought to link
the dead man to the leaked emails instead of hackers working on behalf of the Russians”;
● “And that leads us to lesson No. 4” – Transparency and Trust - “Fox
withheld Butowsky’s various roles in the story from its audiences — he blurred lines
between benefactor, source, player and, possibly, even reporter”.
54. Folkenflik’s false and defamatory statements – in articles and via Twitter
and on Facebook – published to millions and millions of people, caused substantial harm
and injury to Butowsky. Butowsky’s name and reputation have been globally impugned
because of Folkenflik and NPR’s reckless conduct.
15
The truth is that Wheeler read each of the three (3) drafts of Zimmerman’s
articles that were emailed to him on May 15, 2017, and, in fact, he did approve the
quotes. Zimmerman did not “invent” anything and did not “lead” Wheeler in any way.
Folkenflik lied.
16
These are categorically false statements for which Folkenflik had no
evidentiary support.
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55. Through millions upon millions upon millions of publications and
republications, tweets and retweets, posts, likes and shares, Butowsky has suffered
egregious insult, shame, humiliation and embarrassment.
F. FOLKENFLIK AND NPR KNEW THEIR STATEMENTS WERE FALSE
56. This case involves the lowest form of “fake news” and the laziest and
most unscrupulous and unethical journalistic practices exhibited in the new social media
era.
1. Folkenflik Misrepresented Butowsky’s Involvement
57. Before he wrote his first Article, Folkenflik knew that Butowsky’s role
and involvement in the investigation of Seth Rich’s murder was limited.
58. In early 2017, Butowsky contacted the family of Seth Rich to help the
family investigate their son’s unsolved murder. Butowsky graciously offered to pay for a
private investigator. [https://soundcloud.com/siriusxm-news-issues/ed-butowsky-seth-
richs-death]. 17
59. On February 23, 2017, Butowsky contacted Wheeler via text message to
see if Wheeler would be interested in investigating the murder. Butowsky did not know
Wheeler, but had seen him on television. Wheeler appeared to be a competent
investigator.
60. Wheeler entered into a contract with the Rich family (specifically, with
Aaron Rich, Joel Rich and Mary Rich) to investigate the murder of Seth Rich. As
Wheeler stated to FetchYourNews on May 22, 2017:
17
Butowsky also donated $250 to Aaron Rich’s GoFundMe campaign to
raise money, inter alia, to maintain and increase the reward for information leading to an
arrest and conviction of Seth Rich’s killer. [https://www.gofundme.com/SethRich].
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[https://fannin.fetchyournews.com/2017/05/22/detective-rod-wheeler-releases-statement-
concerning-the-death-of-dnc-staffer-seth-rich/].
61. Butowsky was not a party to the contract between Wheeler and the Rich
family. He has never seen the contract.
62. Although Folkenflik made it appear that Butowsky orchestrated and
directed Wheeler’s murder investigation, in truth Butowsky did not participate in
Wheeler’s investigation and had very little communication with Wheeler. Folkenflik
knew that Butowsky’s involvement was limited.
63. Wheeler publicly confirmed Butowsky’s limited involvement in the
investigation. On May 16, 2017, Wheeler represented to Sean Hannity that “I was hired
by the family, Joel and Mary Rich. They signed the contract. Now, the financial benefit,
if there were any financial benefit and by the way there wasn’t much, that was actually
paid for by a third party [Butowsky] that I have had very little communication with
at all, Sean”. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CuRJDKEVxHY (emphasis added)].
64. Folkenflik misrepresented Butowsky’s actual involvement in Wheeler’s
investigation. Folkenflik made it appear as of Butowsky was at the center of the
investigation, directing Wheeler and telling him what to do. Folkenflik falsely portrayed
Butowsky as a puppet master, feeding “tips” to Wheeler and telling Fox what to do. Far
from the truth.
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65. On March 1, 2017, Wheeler told Butowsky that he (Wheeler) had
independently acquired some “dynamic information” from one of his sources, the “lead
detective” on the Seth Rich murder case. Wheeler also claimed that he had learned and
knew who was “blocking the [murder] investigation”. Wheeler texted Butowsky as
follows:
Wheeler told Butowsky that he was meeting with “2 inside contacts” on March 2, 2017.
66. On or before July 28, 2017, Wheeler’s texts were available to Folkenflik
on the Internet and via Twitter. [http://www.debunkingrodwheelersclaims.com/;
https://twitter.com/debunkrwheeler?lang=en]. The Twitter account, @debunkrwheeler,
published the following tweet on July 28, 2017:
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67. On March 31, 2017, Wheeler appeared on Fox 5 DC. Wheeler uploaded
and published the interview to his YouTube channel – “Rod Wheeler”
[https://www.youtube.com/user/4apryl]. Wheeler called the video “Fox 5 DC Seth Rich
Death Rod Interview”. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D_nsLuFyb60].
68. Butowsky did not arrange the interview with Fox 5 DC. Butowsky did not
provide a script or prompt Wheeler in any way.
69. In the interview, Wheeler claimed that he had been investigating the
murder of Seth Rich over the “past three weeks”.
“[T]here has been a lot of reward money that’s been offered for any information.
No one has come forward. So here is the thing that is so important to realize
whenever you have a lot of reward money, in this case it is over $125,000, and
you don’t have anyone coming forward with information. Then what that tells
you as an investigator is that maybe you need to start looking at another cause or
another reason as to why this guy was killed and that’s what we’re doing now.
We’re looking at uh possibly of course a street robbery, but it could, and I
underline the word could, it could have been related, his death to his job, it could
have been related to something else. what I don’t think it was related to
though Allison is this Russian hacking thing.”
(Emphasis added). After the interviewer pointed out to Wheeler that people were
“hinting at the fact that perhaps Seth Rich may have given some documents [to
Wikileaks]”, Wheeler, voluntarily and of his own free will, stated as follows:
“Well a lot of people have made that same observation and you have to ask
yourself what is the motivation behind a person wanting to get involved and offer
reward money, maybe he’s just a good guy and he has a lot of money laying
around so this how he wants to spend his money, but you have to be careful
though when you start throwing out these conspiracy theories, they actually don’t
help the investigation at all … I haven’t found one shred of evidence at all that
indicates that Seth’s death is the result of any Russian hacking or anything
like that. I do think it’s possible and I underline the word possible that it could
have been related to his job to some degree or relationships with the job, don’t
know that for sure but for investigators we have to go down every path until we
can determine who was responsible for his death”.
(Emphasis added).
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70. Wheeler made the representations he did to Fox 5 DC because of his own
independent investigation into the Seth Rich murder.
2. Folkenflik Misrepresented Wheeler’s Contacts With Zimmerman
71. Zimmerman is an award-winning investigative reporter employed by
FoxNews.com. Her reports for Fox largely deal with crime, terrorism in the U.S. and
overseas, homeland security, illegal immigration, and political corruption.
[http://www.foxnews.com/person/z/malia-zimmerman.html].
72. After he appeared on Fox 5 DC, Wheeler updated Zimmerman concerning
his investigation.
73. In his reporting, Folkenflik downplayed and downright misrepresented the
extent of the contact between Wheeler and Zimmerman. Folkenflik concealed the fact
that Wheeler was actively and extensively in contact with Zimmerman.
74. Wheeler advised Zimmerman that he (Wheeler) was prepared to say that
Rich’s murder was not the result of a “botched street robbery”. Wheeler further offered
to Zimmerman that his investigation revealed a “coverup within the D.C. Govt” related to
Rich’s death. 18
75. Zimmerman, who knew Wheeler worked for the Rich family, asked
Wheeler if the family was letting him talk. If Wheeler was “up to it”, Zimmerman
expressed interest in doing a story on the murder investigation. Wheeler and Zimmerman
exchanged the following text messages:
18
On May 16, 2017, District of Columbia Mayor Muriel Bowser called
allegations that the city’s police department is involved in a cover-up in the Seth Rich
murder investigation “preposterous.” [http://dailycaller.com/2017/05/16/dc-mayor-says-
allegations-of-cover-up-of-seth-rich-murder-are-preposterous/].
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3. Folkenflik Knew The President Was Not Involved In Any Way
76. On April 18, 2017, Butowsky sent Wheeler a text message, inquiring
whether Wheeler would be in DC on Thursday, April 20.
77. Butowsky planned to meet with White House Press Secretary, Sean Spicer
(“Spicer”).
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78. Wheeler had been asking Butowsky nonstop to get him an interview, so he
(Wheeler) could get a job in the White House. 19 Butowsky asked Wheeler to put together
a summary of his findings to date, and to bring the report with him to the meeting.
Butowsky emailed Spicer, and asked for a 10-minute meeting, with no specified topic, to
catch up. Butowsky informed Spicer that he would be bringing a Fox News contributor
to the meeting.
79. The meeting with Spicer lasted 10-15 minutes. Most of the time was spent
talking about shirts. Butowsky and Spicer bought their shirts from the same source:
Jacomo Hakim’s Bookatailor. At the meeting, Butowsky and Wheeler, inter alia, told
Spicer that they were working on a story about Seth Rich and wanted Spicer to be aware
of it – that was it.
80. The President of the United States was not at the meeting and Spicer did
not inform the President about the meeting.
81. Folkenflik had no evidence of any connection between Butowsky and the
President because there was no connection.
82. On July 31, 2017, Folkenflik interviewed Spicer. Spicer denied the claims
that the President colluded with Butowsky and/or Fox. Spicer told Folkenflik the
following:
19
See, e.g., https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NaNhtlS2GxE (recording of
phone call in which Wheeler expresses a desire to be employed by the White House)
(“the President can appoint me as an administrator to the President … to specifically
report to him and start taking a look at all of these cases. He can do it. Because someone
needs to reign this stuff in and Trump is the person to do it … Whether you like Obama
or not, for eight years I think this corruption has been allowed to manifest. Now we got a
new President in there and they can’t be as corrupt as they used to be, and that’s messing
with people’s minds.”).
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● “Ed’s been a longtime supporter of the president and asked to meet to

catch up:”;
● “I didn't know who Rod Wheeler was. Once we got into my office,
[Butowsky] said, ‘I'm sure you recognize Rod Wheeler from Fox News’”;
● Butowsky laid out what had been found about the case. “It had nothing to
do with advancing the president’s domestic agenda — and there was no
agenda. They were just informing me of the [Fox] story”;
● Spicer was not aware of any contact, direct or not, between Butowsky and
Trump.
4. Folkenflik Knew Wheeler Had Interviewed Detective Dellacamera
83. Folkenflik knew that as part of the murder investigation, Wheeler was in
direct contact with the “lead detective” – Joseph Dellacamera (“Detective Dellacamera”).
Again, the fact of Wheeler’s contact with Dellacamera and the information divulged to
Wheeler by Dellacamera were both available on the Internet and well-known to
Folkenflik.
84. Information that Wheeler obtained from Detective Dellacamera supported
Wheeler’s belief and his public statements to Zimmerman and others that Seth Rich had
been in contact with WikiLeaks and had sent emails to WikiLeaks.
85. On April 25, 2017, Wheeler interviewed Detective Dellacamera.
86. Wheeler’s notes of the interview, published on the website
www.debunkingrodwheelersclaims.com, state:
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5. Folkenflik Disregarded Wheeler’s Public Statements to Marraco
87. Prior to publishing anything about Fox, Zimmerman or Butowsky,
Folkenflik knew that Wheeler had publicly stated to Fox 5 DC that Seth Rich had been in
email contact with WikiLeaks. Folkenflik knew that Fox 5 DC published an online story
confirming the following facts obtained from Wheeler:
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[http://www.fox5dc.com/news/local-news/private-investigator-there-is-evidence-seth-
rich-contacted-wikileaks-prior-to-death].
88. Wheeler had a crush on Fox 5 DC correspondent, Marina Marraco.
Wheeler called Marraco.
89. On May 15, 2017, Marraco interviewed Wheeler concerning his
investigation of Seth Rich’s murder and his findings to date as part of a Fox 5 DC
“exclusive”. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x48PeHvTddc].
90. Butowsky had absolutely nothing to do with Wheeler’s decision to be
interviewed by Marraco or the statements that Wheeler voluntarily made to Marraco
based on Wheeler’s first-hand knowledge and investigation of the murder of Seth Rich.
91. On May 15, 2017, Wheeler made the following unqualified statements on
camera to Marraco:
“MARINA MARROCO: Today Fox 5 has learned there is new

information that could prove these theorists right. New information from the
family’s private investigator suggests there is tangible evidence on Seth Rich’s
laptop that confirms he was communicating with Wikileaks prior to his death.
Now the question is why has DC police as the lead agency on the investigation for
the past 10 months insisted this was a botched robbery when until this day there is
no evidence to suggest that. The Rich family hired Rod Wheeler a former MPD
homicide detective to run a parallel investigation into their son’s death. Wheeler
says he believes there is a cover up and the police department has been told to
back down from the investigation.”
WHEELER: Neither the police department nor the FBI have

been forthcoming. They haven’t been cooperating at all. I believe that the answer
to solving his death lies on that computer, which I believe is either at the police
department or at the FBI. I’ve been told both. 20
MARINA MARRACO: But you have sources at the FBI saying

that there is information …
20
Actually, Wheeler had been told that Aaron Rich had the computer.
[https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/892494677823434753?lang=en].
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WHEELER: For sure …
MARINA MARRACO: That could link Seth Rich to Wikileaks?
WHEELER: Absolutely, yeah, and that’s confirmed. Actually,

I have a source in the police department that has looked at me straight in the eye
and said ‘Rod we were told to stand down in this case and I can’t share any
information with you’. Now that is highly unusual for a murder investigation,
especially from a police department. Again, I don’t think it comes from the
Chief’s office, but I do believe there is a correlation between the Mayor’s office
and the DNC, and that’s the information that is going to come out tomorrow.”
(Emphasis added). When asked by a Fox 5 DC anchor whether there would be
“evidence” to prove the statements made by Wheeler, Marraco stated as follows:
“MARINA MARRACO: … Rod Wheeler, the investigator, assures us

Fox 5 and assures Fox News that there’s a full report that contains information
that will show how many times Seth Rich made contact with Wikileaks and will
show exactly when this communication took place.” 21
92. In his rush to publish a scandalous story, Folkenflik intentionally ignored
Wheeler’s statements to Fox 5 DC and Marraco. Folkenflik never interviewed Marraco.
In spite of evidence to the contrary, Folkenflik never doubted Wheeler and his handler,
Wigdor.
6. Folkenflik Actually Knew That Fox Accurately Quoted Wheeler
93. Despite his actual knowledge that Fox accurately quoted Wheeler,
Folkenflik intentionally misrepresented that Fox, in concert and with the support of
Butowsky, had “concocted” a “fake news story” about the Seth Rich murder to support
the President.
21
In an audio recording published on YouTube on July 12, 2017, Wheeler
claimed that Marraco had tricked him, that she took things out of context, that she did not
“play” the whole tape of the interview, that he (Wheeler) did not know he was being
recorded. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2p8at6PD4L8].
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94. On May 15, 2017, Wheeler was in contact with Zimmerman multiple
times about the article Zimmerman was writing.
95. Folkenflik had copies of all the email and text message communications
between Wheeler and Zimmerman, which he obtained from Wigdor and which were also
published and available on the Internet. [http://www.debunkingrodwheelersclaims.com/].
a. The First Email
96. At 1:20 p.m. on May 15, 2017, Zimmerman emailed Wheeler a “current
draft” of her article:
97. Wheeler received Zimmerman’s email.
98. Zimmerman’s May 15 “current draft” contained the following words:
99. Zimmerman’s May 15 “current draft” attributed the following quotes to
Wheeler:
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100. Far from denying anything in the May 15 “current draft”, Wheeler offered
Zimmerman further quotes, including the following:
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101. The quotes attributed to Wheeler in Zimmerman’s “current draft” were
identical in substance to statements Wheeler had made in March to Butowsky; to
statements Wheeler made in text messages to Zimmerman; and to statements made by
Wheeler to Marraco and Fox 5 DC in May.
102. The quotes were also completely consistent with Wheeler’s notes of his
interview with Detective Dellacamera.
103. Wheeler did not deny the quotes or object to anything Zimmerman had
written in the “current draft”.
104. Wheeler did not inform Zimmerman that any of his quotes were
inaccurate in any way.
105. If he had objected to anything Zimmerman wrote, Wheeler had a duty to
be truthful. In good conscience, Wheeler should have informed Zimmerman of any
inaccuracies.
106. Wheeler knew Zimmerman and Fox were relying on Wheeler to be
truthful and honest.
107. As an experienced journalist, Folkenflik knew that Wigdor and Wheeler
were lying when they told Folkenflik that Fox fabricated the Wheeler quotes. Folkenflik
chose to act out a lie and published Wigdor’s false narrative. After all, Wigdor had given
Folkenflik and NPR the “exclusive”.
b. The Second Email
108. At 3:59 p.m. on May 15, 2017, Zimmerman emailed Wheeler a revised
draft of the article.
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109. The subject line of Zimmerman’s 3:59 p.m. email expressly advised and
instructed Wheeler to “please read carefully” (emphasis added):
110. The revised 3:59 p.m. draft of Zimmerman’s article made the following
statement about Wheeler:
111. The revised 3:59 p.m. draft of Zimmerman’s article contained the
following quotes attributed to Wheeler:
112. After sending her email with the revised article, Zimmerman texted
Wheeler via iMessage to confirm that he had received the revised article and that he
could read it.
113. Wheeler confirmed that he had received Zimmerman’s email and that he
had read the revised article.
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114. Far from denying any quotes attributed to him in the revised article,
WHEELER OFFERED ZIMMERMAN FURTHER QUOTATIONS!!!:
115. At no point in time did Wheeler ever deny making the statements quoted
by Zimmerman. In fact, when Zimmerman asked Wheeler if she could use the quotes,
Wheeler responded as follows:
116. Wheeler never hesitated, never equivocated, never prevaricated, and never
denied the quotes.
117. Wheeler never attempted to correct, amend, clarify, or retract the quotes.
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118. Before he published his August 1, 2017 article on NPR.org, Folkenflik had
irrefutable evidence that Wigdor was peddling a false narrative.
119. Acting in concert with Wigdor, Folkenflik disregarded serious doubts as to
the veracity of Wheeler and republished a story that Folkenflik knew to be false.
Folkenflik knew the fake news would immediately create massive publicity that would
cast aspersion upon Butowsky and portray him in a false light. Folkenflik republished
the false narrative because he had a deal with Wigdor.
c. The Third Email
120. At 4:47 p.m. on May 15, 2017, Zimmerman sent Wheeler a third email
that included the final draft of the article. Zimmerman’s email specifically advised
Wheeler that the draft had been “turned in” to her editors:
121. As Folkenflik well knew, this was Wheeler’s third and final chance to
deny the quotes.
122. Wheeler made no attempt to stop the presses.
123. The final draft of Zimmerman’s article, emailed to Wheeler at 4:47 p.m.
on May 15, 2017, contained the following quotes attributed to Wheeler:
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124. Wheeler’s own text messages and emails (quoted verbatim above and
available to Folkenflik prior to August 1, 2017), the notes of his interview with Detective
Dellacamera, and Wheeler’s statements to Marraco on May 15, 2017 confirm that Fox
accurately quoted Wheeler. Wheeler’s statements to Marraco bear repeating:
“I believe that the answer to solving his death lies on that computer, which I
believe is either at the police department or at the FBI.”
125. In addition to the emails and text message exchanges, Wheeler confirmed
verbally to Zimmerman that the article accurately depicted his statements, and Wheeler
expressed his support for the story. These statements occurred on conference calls
several days leading up to publication of Zimmerman’s story, including telephone
conversations on May 10, 2017 (10:30 am), May 11, 2017 (9:52 am and 10:12 am), and
May 15, 2017 (11:22 am and 1:13 am).
126. Wheeler also confirmed verbally to Butowsky that he had independently
formed the belief, before publication of Zimmerman’s article, that there were email
communications between Seth Rich and Wikileaks.
127. In his blind desire to publish a story disparaging of Fox, Folkenflik
intentionally and maliciously disregarded the very record before him.
7. Folkenflik Disregarded Seymour Hersh’s Recorded Statement
128. In an audio recording published on July 11, 2017, Hersh provided the
following statement:
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“What I know comes off an FBI Report … The kid [Seth Rich was] … a nice boy,
twenty-seven. He was not an IT expert, but he learned stuff. He was a data
programmer … Here’s what nobody knows … when you have a death like that,
DC cops … have to get to the kid’s apartment and see what you can find … so
they get a warrant … They go in the house and they can’t do much with his
computer … They have a cyber unit in DC, and they’re more sophisticated. They
come and look at it. The idea is that maybe he’s had a series of exchanges with
somebody who’s said ‘I’m going to kill you, you motherfucker’ … and they can’t
get in … So, they call the FBI cyber unit. The DC … Washington Field Office is
a hot shit unit … There’s a cyber unit there that’s excellent … The Feds get
through and here’s what they find. This is according to the FBI Report … What
the Report says is that sometime in late Spring … early Summer, he [Seth Rich]
makes contact with WikiLeaks. That’s in his computer … They found what he
had done. He had submitted a series of documents … juicy emails from the DNC
… He [Seth Rich] offered a sample, an extensive sample … of emails, and said I
want money. Later, WikiLeaks did get the password. He had a … protected
dropbox … He also, and this is in the FBI Report, he also let people know with
whom he was dealing … The word was passed, according to the FBI Report, ‘I
also shared this box with a couple of friends, so if anything happens to me, it’s not
going to solve your problems’ … WikiLeaks got access before he was killed.”
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=giuZdBAXVh0].
129. In his reporting, Folkenflik completely disregarded Hersh’s recorded
statement.
130. Instead, Folkenflik peddled a preconceived narrative that the Fox News
story, directed and supported by Butowsky, was “baseless”. Folkenflik knew his
statements were false.
8. Folkenflik Knew About Wheeler’s Appearances On Hannity and Dobbs
131. On May 16, 2017, in the early morning, Fox published Zimmerman’s
story entitled, “Seth Rich, slain DNC staffer, had contact with WikiLeaks, say multiple
sources”. The article included the statements that Wheeler had made and approved.
[http://web.archive.org/web/20170516133954/http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017/05/
16/slain-dnc-staffer-had-contact-with-wikileaks-investigator-says.html].
132. Fox News also tweeted Zimmerman’s story to its 16 Million followers:
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133. Folkenflik knew that on May 16, 2017 – after publication of
Zimmerman’s article – Wheeler appeared on Fox News where he was interviewed by
Sean Hannity (“Hannity”). [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CuRJDKEVxHY].
134. When he spoke with Hannity, Wheeler knew the Zimmerman article had
been published with his approved quotations included.
135. Wheeler once again expressly confirmed that Seth Rich had
communicated with WikiLeaks.
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136. The transcript of Wheeler’s interview with Hannity is clear and
unambiguous:
“HANNITY: The timeline is fascinating here. As I played in the

last segment, Julian Assange I asked him repeatedly on radio and television if
Russia was involved, absolutely not. Now believe him or not, he’s the guy at
WikiLeaks who has an 11 year history of never being proven wrong … I guess
my question is when you look at the timeline of this, and 12 days after he was
killed it shows up on WikiLeaks, what did you discover in terms of the
contacts with WikiLeaks?
WHEELER: Right, well that is an excellent question and let me

clear that up right now exactly what it was that I found. Now I have never seen
the emails myself directly. I haven’t even seen the computer that Seth Rich used.
Here is the problem with all of this: I don’t even know where the computer is. I
checked with the police department. They said they don’t know where the
computer is and the FBI they say they don’t have the computer. Now, where did
this information come from in terms of knowing or believing, I should say, that
Seth Rich could have been in communications with WikiLeaks. There was a
federal investigator that was involved on the inside of the case, a person that is
very credible. And I’ll tell you, let me just say this Sean, I don’t like to suggest
things without saying the person’s name, but I can’t say that person’s name
because that person would be thrown under the bus. And I can’t do that, but this
person we checked him out, we had to check him out, very credible. He said
he laid eyes on the computer, and he laid eyes on the case file, and he came
across very credible. When you look at that with the totality of everything
else I’ve found in this case, it’s very consistent for a person with my
experience to begin to think well perhaps there were some email
communications between Seth and WikiLeaks. Everytime I talk to the police
department though Sean, everytime I talk to the police department about the
WikiLeaks or the emails, it’s automatically shut down. That discussion is
automatically shut down.
…
(Emphasis added). Wheeler never once informed Hannity that Zimmerman or Fox or
Butowsky had misquoted him. Wheeler never claimed that Fox, with Butowsky’s support,
had “fabricated” quotes or that the Zimmerman article was “fake news”. Wheeler never
said that Butowsky had “fed” him “tips”. Wheeler went on to tell Hannity that:
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“[i]f this is just a murder investigation, first of all why would the FBI be
involved? The only reason the FBI would be involved just so that the viewers
understand is if this has some degree of national exposure, meaning because
maybe it is related to the DNC. We don’t know that. We don’t know that for
sure. It could have been a botched robbery, but my point is this Sean and I’ve
been investigating murders for a while you have to look at every possibility you
can’t just look at one thing say well that has to be it … But here is the thing, and
this is so important, there has been a $125,000 reward out for information
pertaining to the death of Seth Rich. Not one person has come forward. Here is
one other thing that is going to be startling and I’m just going to say this right
now. I reached out to the police department way back in March when the family
first hired me right to get involved. I didn’t hear anything from the police
department for 2-3 days. Guess what I leaned yesterday [May 15, 2017] from the
family of Seth Rich? The police department did not call me back because
someone, a high-ranking official at the DNC, check this out, a high-ranking
official at the DNC, when I called the police department. They got that
information and called the Rich family wanting to know why was I snooping
around?
…
I don’t know for sure. I don’t know as a matter of fact if the emails
went out to the WikiLeaks or anybody else, but it sure appears that way.”
(Emphasis added).
137. Folkenflik knew all about the Hannity interview, just like he knew about
Wheeler’s extensive text and email communications with Zimmerman and Butowsky.
Folkenflik knew that Wheeler – who was held out by Wigdor as a seasoned DC homicide
investigator – opined that it “sure appears” there were email communications between
Seth Rich and WikiLeaks.
138. Folkenflik also knew that Wheeler had disclosed to Zimmerman what the
Rich family had said. In text messages on May 15, 2017, published on the Internet and
available to Folkenflik, Wheeler expressly advised Zimmerman as follows:
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“Joel [Rich] said that when I called the police department, right after that Donna
Brazile called him and was asking him why I was snooping around asking
questions about death of Seth and his working relationships at the DNC. I was
startled to learn that Donna Brazile even knew that I reached out to the
police department. So basically when I called the police department that
information was automatically given to Donna Brazile and she caught [sic] Joel
wanting to know why I was inquiring about Seth relationships at the DNC. As a
police investigator that automatically makes me think that Donna Brazile is
in a category of persons of interest as it relates to the death of Seth Rich. I
also spoke with another source who informed me that not only was Donna Brazile
snooping around wanting to know what I was learning with regards to the DNC
and Seth Rich but also I was told that Debbie Wasserman Schultz was
snooping around wanting to know how much it was I [sic] learning.”
“I just read the email you sent. Joel [Rich] informed me that Donna Brazile
called him not the police department asking why I was snooping around.
My question is how did she know I called the detective so quick.”
(Emphasis added).
139. In addition to Hannity, on May 16, 2017 Wheeler appeared on Fox
Business with Lou Dobbs (“Dobbs”) to discuss the Seth Rich murder investigation.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2tqckO7bBjk]. Dobbs asked Wheeler about “this
federal investigator, we’re in an unusual situation, an FBI forensic report showing 44,000
emails 18,000 attachments, that approximates just about what was released by WikiLeaks
… do you think that is a coincidence?” Wheeler replied without hesitation,
“WHEELER: No, I actually don’t think it’s a coincidence… his

information that he shared with Fox News is pretty consistent with everything else
I’ve been learning 22 including the fact that right now no one seems to know where
the computers are that belonged to Seth Rich, the computers obviously were
confiscated at some point.”
When Dobbs asked about the claim that DC detectives were told to “stand down”,
Wheeler stated:
22
Wheeler vouched for the FBI Report and expressed no doubt that there
was email communication between Seth Rich and WikiLeaks.
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WHEELER: And that is a claim I actually heard myself from a

detective, who said ‘Rod we were told not to investigate this fully’. Now see
that’s interesting because that is consistent with what this federal investigator
said. The federal investigator never knew Lou, that I had heard from a detective
in the police department to stand down. Well if this guy says the same thing, you
have to start saying to yourself well maybe there is some truth behind this. So,
that’s why I think when you look at the totality of everything we have right now it
is very consistent with what this federal investigator has said.
…
We also don’t have body cameras that I know police officers were
wearing on the scene the night in which Seth was killed. That’s a problem
because we know for a fact those officers had on body cameras. No one knows
where the video is. I think we are going to have to continue to look at this case
and hope more will come out as time goes by Lou.”
140. Folkenflik knew that Wheeler’s statements to Marraco, Zimmerman,
Hannity and Dobbs in May 2017 cast serious doubts on the false narrative promoted by
Wigdor in June/July 2017. In spite of these doubts, Folkenflik published Wigdor and
Wheeler’s statements as if they were true. 23
23
As was well-known to Folkenflik prior to publication of the false and
defamatory statements at issue in this action, Wheeler made repeated positive statements
to multiple people, and then, in less than 48 hours, claimed that his own statements were
fabricated. Wheeler did a colossal flip-flop. Blake Hounshell, the Editor-in-Chief of
POLITICO Magazine, observed:
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9. Folkenflik Knew About Wigdor/Wheeler’s Motive To Lie
141. On May 16 or May 17, 2017, one or more members of Seth Rich’s family
or a spokesman for the Rich family (Bauman) threatened to sue Wheeler for violating the
terms of his contract with the Richs by speaking with Marraco, Zimmerman, Hannity and
Dobbs. [See, e.g., https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/justice-department/slain-dnc-
staffer-s-family-orders-blabbing-detective-cease-desist-n762211].
142. Counsel for the Rich family, Joseph A. Ingrisano, Esquire, of Kutak Rock,
notified Wheeler that his “statements and actions have caused, and continue to cause, the
[Rich] Family severe mental anguish and emotional distress. Your behavior appears to
have been deliberate, intentional, outrageous, and in patent disregard of the Agreement
and the obvious damage and suffering it would cause the Family.” Ingrisano further
advised Wheeler that his “improper and unauthorized statements, many of which are false
and have no basis in fact, have also injured the memory and reputation of Seth Rich and
have defamed and injured the reputation and standing of the members of the Family”.
143. Bauman, a DNC crisis operations, strategic planning, digital engagement,
rapid response, and media relations “political consultant” 24 deployed to represent the
Rich family after the murder of Seth Rich, also issued a public statement. Bauman
trumpeted the DNC party line: “Anyone who continues to push this fake news story after
it was so thoroughly debunked is proving to the world they have a transparent political
agenda or are a sociopath”. “In either case, they should be taken off the air because they
24
Bauman is the former Executive Director of the Democratic Congressional
Progressive Caucus, the largest caucus within the House Democratic Caucus. [https://cpc-
grijalva.house.gov/what-is-cpc/]. He is currently an agent working for the “Pastorum
Group”, a full-service communications and political strategy firm founded by Bauman
and dedicated to promoting Democratic candidates, causes and coalitions.
[https://www.thepastorumgroup.com/#about-section].
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are either blind to the damage they are doing to a murder victim’s family or don’t care,
showing a profound lack of judgement and common decency.” Bauman discouraged the
investigation of Seth Rich’s murder, upon information and belief, because he was
assisting the DNC in a cover-up of Seth Rich’s leak of emails to WikiLeaks.
144. The threats from the Rich family and Bauman provided Wheeler with a
motive to lie, backtrack and to distance himself from the quotes and statements he had
made to Marraco, Zimmerman, Hannity and Dobbs.
145. Folkenflik knew that Wheeler’s liability to the Rich family also provided
Wheeler with a motive to lie about Butowsky, Zimmerman and Fox.
146. Folkenflik also knew that there was significant conflict between Wheeler
and Seth Rich’s brother, Aaron Nathan Rich, an employee of defense contractor,
Northrop Grumman Corporation (NYSE:NOC) with a Top-Secret security clearance. 25
Folkenflik knew that in a YouTube video recording (published July 12, 2017) Wheeler
had accused Aaron Rich of obstructing the murder investigation by prohibiting Wheeler
from inquiring about “emails”. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2p8at6PD4L8].
BigLeaguePolitics.com summarized the audio tape of Wheeler’s accusations of
obstruction as follows:
25
Aaron Rich is a Senior Software Engineer with NOC.
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[https://bigleaguepolitics.com/audio-rod-wheeler-explains-fox-news-fiasco-claims-
brother-blocked-wikileaks-inquiries/].
147. Aaron Rich’s obstruction and refusal to permit Wheeler to investigate Seth
Rich’s emails caused Wheeler to believe that there were email communications between
Rich and Wikileaks. In the July 12, 2017 audio recording, Wheeler positively stated,
“with everybody pushing back on this email thing in the family and they’re so
protective of the email, it leads me to think that perhaps there were some
communications between Seth Rich and Wikileaks.” 26
26
Compare these statements to what Wheeler told Zimmerman and what was
published in the Fox News’ story:
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148. Wheeler’s public statements about the Seth Rich emails should have
caused Folkenflik (and Wigdor) to question the veracity of Wheeler’s subsequent denial
of his quotations to Zimmerman.
10. Folkenflik Could Never Have Believed The Flip-Flopping Wheeler
149. Folkenflik knew that Wigdor’s source, Wheeler, flip-flopped on virtually
all the essential facts, including what he (Wheeler) had told Marraco. The fact that
Folkenflik accepted Wheeler’s word as true – when it was verifiably false – demonstrates
that Folkenflik acted with reckless disregard for the truth.
150. In an article published on May 17. 2017 at 12:42 a.m., BuzzFeed News
quoted Wheeler as follows:
https://www.buzzfeed.com/claudiakoerner/the-private-detective-who-ignited-a-clinton-
conspiracy?utm_term=.cmYQ8ZrbEz#.xr04N76J3z].
151. On May 17, 2017 at 11:32 p.m., Fox 5 DC published an editor’s note. The
note emphasized that what Wheeler told Fox 5 DC on camera on Monday, May 15, 2017
regarding Seth Rich’s murder investigation is in “clear contrast” to his representations
“over the last 48 hours”. Fox 5 DC pointed out that Wheeler “backtracked” completely
on his assurances given to Fox 5 DC and Fox News on May 15, 2017. After Wheeler
backtracked, Fox 5 DC attempted incessantly to communicate with him, but he did not
return calls or emails. On May 17, 2017, “just before our newscast, Wheeler responded
to our requests via a telephone conversation, where he now backtracks his position and
Wheeler characterizes his on-the-record and on-camera statements as
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‘miscommunication.’” [http://www.fox5dc.com/news/local-news/private-investigator-
there-is-evidence-seth-rich-contacted-wikileaks-prior-to-death]. 27
11. Folkenflik Knew About Wheeler’s Statement to FetchYourNews
152. After May 17, 2017, Wheeler continued to publish statements that should
have caused Folkenflik to doubt Wigdor and Wheeler’s false narrative.
153. On May 22, 2017, Wheeler released a statement concerning the death of
Seth Rich that was published by Brian K. Pritchard of FetchYourNews.com.
[http://fetchyournews.com/tag/rod-wheeler/]:
154. Wheeler’s written statement, in pertinent part, reads:
27
Folkenflik (and Wigdor) had every reason to doubt Wheeler’s veracity.
Wheeler’s backtracking and lies were a matter of public record. Folkenflik and Wigdor
acted with reckless disregard for the truth when they deliberately republished Wheeler’s
false and defamatory statements about Butowsky and Fox.
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Wheeler publicly admitted that Zimmerman’s article was “essentially correct and
worthy of further investigation”. (Emphasis added). 28
155. Folkenflik failed to report any of this in his Articles. Rather, he concealed
the truth and materially misrepresented Wheeler’s position.
156. Rupert Murdock’s daughter-in-law, Kathryn Murdock (wife of James
Murdock), worked for the Clinton Foundation and is a friend of the Clintons.
[http://www.qdvm.org/kathrynmurdoch/]. As Folkenflik well knew, Kathryn Murdock is
also an outspoken critic of President Trump.
157. Zimmerman’s article was not pulled by Fox because it was “concocted” or
“fake news” or “deceptive” or any of the other pejorative connotations used by Folkenflik
28
Despite Wheeler’s own words, Wigdor and Wheeler falsely stated that on
May 16, 2017, Wheeler called Zimmerman and confronted her about the use of false
statements in the article. Wigdor and Wheeler ginned up a story that Zimmerman told
Wheeler that she would have the statements removed from the article and, when they
were not removed, that Zimmerman told Wheeler that she had been instructed by her
bosses at Fox News to leave the false quotes in the story. Wigdor and Wheeler made up
facts out of whole cloth. If Wheeler was upset about purportedly fabricated quotes
of a highly politically-charged nature being falsely attributed to him, why would he
admit in a written statement on May 22, 2017 that Zimmerman’s story was
“essentially correct and worthy of further investigation”??? In truth, Wheeler
admitted to FetchYourNews – on at least two public occasions on May 22, 2017 –
that Zimmerman’s article was on the money.
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and NPR. At Kathryn Murdock’s request, and for political reasons, Fox pulled
Zimmerman’s article.
158. On May 23, 2017, Fox retracted the article with the following explanation:
“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.
Upon appropriate review, the article was found not to meet those standards and
has since been removed.
We will continue to investigate this story and will provide updates as warranted.”
[http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017/05/23/statement-on-coverage-seth-rich-murder-
investigation.html].
159. On June 5, 2017, Wheeler denied back-tracking on Fox and Zimmerman.
He told the hosts of YouTube channel, Crowdsource The Truth, that “I haven’t walked
back anything. As a matter of fact, in my statement that I released a week ago … I said
… in writing that I do believe that there was some communication between Seth and
WikiLeaks and I believe that based on common sense”. (Emphasis added).29
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yDI0AFOHuNI]. Wheeler also confirmed that he
had hired an “attorney”.
160. On June 19, 2017, Wheeler appeared on another YouTube channel,
Jamarl Thomas, and tried to explain away his statements to Marraco. Wheeler stated:
29
This is the exact same thing that he said to Zimmerman and that she
quoted in the May 16, 2017 Fox News story.
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“what happened was the Fox 5 reporter, a woman named Marina Marroco, she
reached out to me on that particular Monday … So I had not read the actual report
that was going to be released by the Fox News reporter on Tuesday, but I had
heard there was going to be a report released. 30 So the Fox 5 reporter asked could
I give her a comment just a teaser, okay just teaser for the 10 o’clock news …
So she asked me and this is important she said so you have information from a
source that they have seen emails from Seth Rich computer? And I said I think I
said something yes, confirmed. Now what did I mean by that? I meant that it was
confirmed by the Fox News reporter who had just told me about this guy, not that
it was confirmed that I saw it with my own eyes. So I never really back tracked
on anything. The reporter from Fox News who told me yes it’s confirmed that
this guy that this guy saw the emails, okay and so basically what I did was
repeated that but not once have I ever said I saw the computer.”
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=er8PhSOk85s]. Wheeler confirmed that his work
for the Rich Family was “done”. Wheeler stated that he declined to keep working on the
Seth Rich murder case because “my family and me has [sic] taken so much of a hit in the
media over the past couple of weeks. To be honest, I’ve never had to deal with anything
like this before. You know what I mean? … It takes a toll on you, so I decided I really
don’t even want to be involved in this case anymore.”
COUNT I – DEFAMATION PER SE
161. Butowsky restates paragraphs 1 through 160 of this Complaint and
incorporates them herein by reference.
162. Folkenflik and NPR made and published to third-parties, including
subscribers, viewers, listeners, followers, main stream media, and print media, numerous
false factual statements, which are detailed verbatim above, of or concerning Butowsky.
163. By publishing Articles on the Internet and by tweeting his false
statements, Folkenflik and NPR knew or should have known that their false and
defamatory statements would be republished over and over by third-parties millions of
30
This is a patently false statement. As evidenced by the emails and text
messages on May 15, 2017, Wheeler had read Zimmerman’s report.
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times to Butowsky’s detriment and injury. Republication by main stream media, print
media and on social media was the natural and probable consequence of Folkenflik and
NPR’s actions and was actually and/or presumptively authorized by Folkenflik and NPR.
In addition to their original publications, Folkenflik and NPR are liable for the millions
upon millions of republications of the false and defamatory statements by third-parties.
164. Folkenflik and NPR’s false statements constitute defamation per se. The
statements accuse and impute to Butowsky the commission of crimes involving moral
turpitude and for which Butowsky may be punished and imprisoned in a state or federal
institution. The statements impute to Butowsky an unfitness to perform the duties of an
office or employment for profit, or the want of integrity in the discharge of the duties of
such office or employment. Folkenflik and NPR’s statements also prejudice Butowsky in
his profession or trade.
165. Folkenflik and NPR’s false statements caused Butowsky to suffer loss and
injury to his business, insult, pain, embarrassment, humiliation, and mental suffering,
harm to Butowsky’s name reputation, and out-of-pocket loss.
166. Folkenflik and NPR acted with actual malice and reckless disregard for
the truth for the following reasons:
a. Folkenflik, NPR and its editors and publishers abandoned all
journalistic standards in writing, editing and publishing the Articles at issue;
b. Acting in concert with Wigdor, Folkenflik and NPR conceived a
story line in advance of any investigation and then consciously set out to make the
evidence conform to the preconceived story. Folkenflik pursued and regurgitated
the preconceived narrative that he knew to be false.
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c. Folkenflik and NPR relied on a primary source – Wheeler – that
Folkenflik and NPR knew to be wholly debunked and unreliable. Based on
information known and available to Folkenflik, Folkenflik in fact harbored
serious doubt as to the veracity of Wigdor and Wheeler’s statements about
Butowsky. Indeed, the statements were knowingly false, with not a shred of
supporting evidence, and Folkenflik knew that before he wrote the Articles
published by NPR.
d. Folkenflik and NPR were in possession of Wheeler’s email
communications and text messages with Zimmerman and other information that
demonstrated the falsity of Wigdor and Wheeler’s information. Folkenflik
consciously and intentionally ignored known and available contradictory evidence
that demonstrated the preconceived thesis was false and deliberately failed to
investigate sources of information (e.g., Marraco, Hersh, etc.) that contradicted
the preconceived storyline.
e. Folkenflik and NPR knowingly presented half-truths wrapped in
misstatements and conjecture. They repeated Wigdor and Wheeler’s words
knowing that the words were false or inherently improbable and at a time when
there were obvious reasons to doubt the veracity and credibility of both Wigdor
and Wheeler. Folkenflik and NPR repeated Wigdor and Wheeler’s words at a
time when they were cognizant of the sources inconsistencies and credibility
problems.
f. Folkenflik and NPR knew that Wigdor and Wheeler both had a
strong motive to lie about Butowsky, and a motive to fabricate the charges
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conspiracy, collusion, fraud and “fake news”. Folkenflik and NPR never
questioned the extreme bias of their sources. Rather, Folkenflik and NPR were
guided by their own extreme bias, ill-will and desire to publish a salacious story
about the President, Fox, fake news and “collusion”. Folkenflik’s book, prior
articles, blogs and tweets about Fox and Rupert Murdoch further demonstrate that
he and NPR was prejudiced against Fox and had an axe to grind. Butowsky was a
victim of that actual malice.
g. Folkenflik and NPR chose to manufacture and publish false
statements about Butowsky and use unnecessarily strong and violent language,
disproportionate to the occasion, when they knew there was no evidentiary basis
for the statements. Folkenflik and NPR did not act in good faith because, in the
total absence of evidence, they could not have had an honest belief in the truth of
their statements about Butowsky.
h. Folkenflik and NPR reiterated, repeated and continued to publish
the false defamatory statements out of a desire to gain notoriety, increase
revenues for NPR, hurt Butowsky and Fox and with reckless disregard for the
consequences.
i. Folkenflik and NPR initiated the defamation, and went out of their
way to publish extra-judicial statements about Butowsky.
167. Folkenflik and NPR lacked reasonable grounds for any belief in the truth
of their statements and acted negligently in failing to determine the true facts.
168. As a direct result of Folkenflik and NPR’s defamation, Butowsky suffered
substantial damage and loss, including, but not limited to, pain and suffering, emotional
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distress and trauma, insult, anguish, stress and anxiety, public ridicule, humiliation,
embarrassment, indignity, damage and injury to his personal and professional reputations,
attorney’s fees, costs, and other out-of-pocket expenses in an amount to be determined by
the Jury, but not less than $57,000,000.00.
COUNT II – BUSINESS DISPARAGEMENT
170. Folkenflik and NPR published false and disparaging information about
Butowsky, which is detailed verbatim above.
171. Folkenflik and NPR knew their statements were false and acted with the
specific intent to injure Butowsky and aid and abet the extortion money from Fox.
172. None of Folkenflik and NPR’s statements are privileged. Folkenflik and
NPR had no right to publish false and disparaging information about Butowsky.
Folkenflik and NPR knew of the falsity of their statements and acted with wanton,
intentional and reckless disregard concerning publication. Folkenflik and NPR acted
with ill-will and they intended to interfere with the economic interests of Butowsky in an
unprivileged fashion.
173. Folkenflik and NPR’s statements and actions constitute business
disparagement under Texas law.
174. Folkenflik and NPR’s business disparagement caused Butowsky to suffer
and incur special damages, including loss of income and business and out-of-pocket
expenses in an amount to be determined by the Jury, but not less than $57,000,000.00.
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COUNT III– CIVIL CONSPIRACY
incorporate them herein by reference.
176. Beginning in July 2017 and continuing through the present, Folkenflik
combined, associated, agreed or acted in concert with Wigdor for the express purpose of
injuring Butowsky in his business and reputation through the publication and
republication of false and defamatory statements. In furtherance of the conspiracy and
preconceived joint plan, Folkenflik and Wigdor orchestrated a scheme the unlawful
purpose of which was to defame Butowsky and destroy his name and reputation. Acting
in concert, Folkenflik and Wigdor utilized the mails, wires, Internet and various main
stream media outlets and social media properties to publish, republish and spread the
defamation and character assassination.
177. Folkenflik acted intentionally, purposefully, without lawful justification,
and with the express knowledge that he was injuring Butowsky.
178. Folkenflik’s joint actions with Wigdor constitute a civil conspiracy under
Texas law.
179. As a direct result of Folkenflik’s misconduct, Butowsky suffered damage
and loss, including, but not limited to, injury to and loss of business, injury to his
reputation, insult, pain, humiliation, embarrassment, mental suffering, attorney’s fees,
court costs, and other damages in an amount to be determined by the Jury, but not less
than $57,000,000.00.
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COUNT IV – INTENTIONAL INFLICTION OF EMOTIONAL DISTRESS
180. Butowsky restates paragraphs 1 through 179 of this Complaint, and
181. Folkenflik and NPR’s conduct, detailed above, was intentional and/or
reckless.
182. Folkenflik and NPR’s actions offend against generally accepted standards
of decency and morality and are atrocious and utterly intolerable.
183. Folkenflik and NPR’s outrageous conduct caused Butowsky to suffer
severe emotion distress, extreme fear and panic. 31
184. Folkenflik and NPR’s misconduct constitutes intentional infliction of
emotional distress.
185. As a direct result of Folkenflik and NPR’s misconduct, Butowsky suffered
damage and incurred loss, including, without limitation, pain and suffering, physical
injury, severe emotional trauma, insult, embarrassment, humiliation, public ridicule,
anguish, stress and anxiety, injury to reputation, special damages, medical expenses,
attorney's fees, costs and out-of-pocket expenses in an amount to be determined by the
Jury, but not less than $57,000,000.00.
31
The severe emotional distress and tragic consequences that can be caused
by false statements made for political and/or malicious reasons, including those published
and republished by media outlets such as NPR, is very well-known. [See, e.g.,
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/kentucky-state-lawmaker-commits-suicide-amid-
allegations-of-sexual-misconduct/article/2643461].
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Butowsky alleges the foregoing based upon personal knowledge, public
statements of others, and records in his possession. Butowsky believes that substantial
additional evidentiary support, which is in the exclusive possession of Folkenflik, NPR,
their sources, Wigdor and Wheeler, and their agents and other third-parties, will exist for
the allegations and claims set forth above after a reasonable opportunity for discovery.
Butowsky reserves the right to amend this Complaint upon discovery of
additional instances of Folkenflik and NPR’s defamation and wrongdoing.
CONCLUSION AND REQUEST FOR RELIEF
WHEREFORE, Ed Butowsky respectfully requests the Court to enter Judgment
against Folkenflik and NPR, jointly and severally, as follows:
A. Compensatory damages in an amount to be determined by the Jury, but
not less than $57,000,000.00;
B. Punitive damages in the maximum amount allowed by Texas law;
C. Prejudgment interest on the principal sum awarded to Plaintiff by the Jury
from August 1, 2017 to the date of Judgment at the maximum rate allowed by law;
D. Postjudgment interest at the maximum rate allowed by Texas law;
E. Costs and such other relief as is just and proper.
TRIAL BY JURY IS DEMANDED
DATED: June 20, 2018
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ED BUTOWSKY,
In his Individual and Professional Capacities
By: /s/ Ty Clevenger

Ty Clevenger, Esquire
Texas Bar No. 24034380
P.O. Box 20753
Brooklyn, NY 11202-0753
(979) 985-5289
(979) 530-9523 (Fax)
Email: tyclevenger@yahoo.com
Counsel for the Plaintiff
Steven S. Biss (VSB # 32972)

300 West Main Street, Suite 102
Charlottesville, Virginia 22903
Telephone: (804) 501-8272
Facsimile: (202) 318-4098
Email: stevenbiss@earthlink.net
Of Counsel for the Plaintiff

(Application for Admission Pro Hac Vice
To be Filed)
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Case 4:19-cv-00180-ALM-KPJ Document 62 Filed 07/15/19 Page 1 of 51 PageID #: 1240

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

Edward Butowsky, in his personal and

Michael Gottlieb, Meryl Governski,

FIRST AMENDED COMPLAINT

cv-442-ALM. The Folkenflik complaint is attached as Exhibit 1 and incorporated herein

responsible for stealing DNC emails and giving them to Wikileaks.

3. The bogus lawsuit portrayed Mr. Butowsky as a ruthless political operative of

from Fox News.

on 16 felony counts for lying to police and fabricating a hoax.

Mr. Butowsky's statements about the stolen emails were accurate.

7. As a result of the lies fabricated and perpetuated by the Defendants, Mr.

result, Mr. Butowsky had to hire a bodyguard for his son.

the harm that they caused.

Jurisdiction and Venue

Plaintiff resides in Texas, whereas all Defendants reside in other states.

that Mr. Butowsky lives near Dallas or in Texas.

He brings claims in his personal and professional capacities.

12. Defendant Michael Gottlieb is an attorney who resides in or near Washington,

13. Defendant Meryl Governski is an attorney who resides in or near Washington,

15. Defendant Brad Bauman is a political communications consultant who lives in

Washington, D.C. He is a partner in Defendant The Pastorum Group.

16. Defendant The Pastorum Group is a political consulting firm in Washington,

17. Defendant Leonard A. Gail is an attorney who resides in or near Chicago,

18. Defendant Eli J. Kay-Oliphant is an attorney who resides in or near Chicago,

19. Defendant Suyash Agrawal is an attorney who resides in or near Chicago,

21. Defendant Gregory Y. Porter is an attorney who resides in or near

Washington, D.C. He is a partner in Bailey & Glasser LLP.

22. Defendant Michael L. Murphy is an attorney who resides in or near

Washington, D.C. He is a partner in Bailey & Glasser LLP.

“Bailey & Glasser Defendants.”

24. Defendant Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. (hereinafter “Defendant CNN”)

is a Georgia corporation headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia. CNN is a left-wing media

brand that is wholly-owned by Turner Broadcasting System, Inc.

25. Anderson Cooper is a left-wing media personality who hosts Anderson

his website http://www.ac2live.com, he is now selling tickets for an upcoming live

performance in Sugarland, Texas with Andy Cohen. According to the Houston

works in New York, New York.

New York, New York.

New York. It publishes Vox online.

32. Defendant Jane Coaston is a left-wing political activist who masquerades as

hereinafter) mention the fact that Mr. Butowsky is a Texas resident.

33. Defendant The Democratic National Committee (“Defendant DNC”) is a

political organization headquartered in Washington, D.C.

34. As indicated above, this case is the consequence of a conspiracy theory,

overthrow a duly-elected President.

35. In 2015, the administration of President Barrack Obama began spying on

prominent Republican presidential candidates, as well as Democratic candidate Bernie

employees from the National Security Agency (“NSA).

Mrs. Clinton was facing multiple investigations, including Congressional, administrative,

opponents at any cost.

38. As explained by retired Central Intelligence Agency analyst Larry C. Johnson,

Stooge Started on May 4, 2016,” (https://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semper_tyrannis/

Page on that date:

Administration officials to secure wiretapping warrants against members of the Trump

Trump for colluding with the Russian government.

role in leaking DNC emails.

not removed from his body.

for Seth's murder.

message to Ms. Ratner:

ask his new lawyer, my sister-in-law.”

50. On May 16, 2017, FoxNews.com published a story by Malia Zimmerman

known attorneys in Dallas. Mr. Butowsky participated in the telephone conversation

night before it was published: