The Seth Rich conspiracy theory was started by Russia

THREAD: In the summer of 2016, Russian intelligence agents secretly planted a fake report claiming that DNC staffer Seth Rich was gunned down by a squad of assassins working for Hillary Clinton https://t.co/26wYjjhQBz via @Isikoff

— Yahoo News (@YahooNews) July 9, 2019

In the new episode of #Conspiracyland, you can hear how then top WH aide Steve Bannon promoted the bogus Seth Rich murder conspiracy– "its a contract kill, obviously," he tells a Sixty Minutes producer and…(1) https://t.co/qVcIFGatSL

— Michael Isikoff (@Isikoff) July 23, 2019

So, this is interesting. Right-wing Trump-adoring conspiracy theorist dumps all his Seth Rich related stuff after it turns out the signal was coming from Moscow. But why? I mean, was he offered some kind of reputation-washing fellowship at some prestigious institution? /1 https://t.co/zOJnjzTVT6

— Tom Nichols (@RadioFreeTom) July 10, 2019

.@chrislhayes on the Seth Rich conspiracy theories last night: "I should also say that my beloved magazine The Nation, that I worked at for years on the masthead, also ran stories dabbling in this. This got to lots of places, there were left-venues that adopted it." Kudos. pic.twitter.com/1VF1fte53Y

— Matthew Gertz (@MattGertz) July 10, 2019

It was one of the wildest conspiracies of the 2016 election and was peddled by Trump’s favorite TV network & inside his own White House. The true origins of the Seth Rich lie are being exposed and we hear crickets from those who pushed it. They must own it, they must apologize. pic.twitter.com/0n4r0fU7XT

— Christopher C. Cuomo (@ChrisCuomo) July 10, 2019

Update: In more text messages to me, Rudy Giuliani doubled down on his Seth Rich conspiracy theory and accused me of lacking "proper seductive (sic) reasoning" https://t.co/sDpi03sMKF

— Will Sommer (@willsommer) August 26, 2019