![]() But Stone and his guest that day - arch conspiracy theorist Jerome Corsi - were not going to back off the story.Ĭonservative political activist Jerome Corsi (Photo: Paul Handley/AFP/Getty Images) The retraction was one of the biggest embarrassments in the history of America’s most-watched cable news network, all the more awkward because its star nighttime host, Sean Hannity, had promoted the phony story into the media stratosphere. That podcast was just six days after Fox News had retracted its bogus story alleging that Seth Rich had leaked DNC emails to WikiLeaks, a subject that was explored on the fourth and fifth “Conspiracyland” episodes. The new “Conspiracyland” episode traces some of the earliest attacks on the Rich family to a May 29, 2017, episode of “Stone Cold Truth,” the podcast hosted by Roger Stone, President Trump’s longtime political adviser now facing charges of lying to Congress. And Aaron and Joel and Mary Rich were a very unique example of that.” “Unfortunately, in this country we have a pretty tidy little conspiracy cottage industry that is devoted really to hounding people who have lost loved ones in violent ways. “Pretty much everyone who loses a loved one in a mass shooting that gets a significant amount of media attention is at some point told that their family member was a crisis actor who didn’t really die,” says Anna Merlan, author of a new book, “ Republic of Lies: American Conspiracy Theorists and Their Surprising Rise to Power.” The harassment of Rich - as well as other family members, friends and neighbors of Seth Rich - is the subject of “Collateral Damage,” the sixth and final episode of “ Conspiracyland.” It is an episode that illustrates a broader phenomenon in America’s social media-driven conspiracy culture: cruel attacks on the families, friends and associates of the innocent victims of random acts of violence. “The different feelings that you go through watching someone profit off of lies about you and your family - it is indescribable. “It’s infuriating,” Aaron Rich said in an interview. If your brother was murdered, I wonder how you would feel if some person you had never met started publishing videos claiming to have ‘evidence’ that you had participated in your brother’s murder.”ĭownload or subscribe: “Conspiracyland” on Apple Podcasts “I ask you to think about your experience as a husband, father, and son, and treat us how you would want to be treated if you had lost a loved one. “Let me state this as clearly as I can: your accusations are completely false, and you should be ashamed of yourself for dragging my name through the mud to advance a political cause,” Rich wrote in his letter. 21, 2017, Aaron sent Couch an angry, but poignant, letter pleading with him to stop. With no evidence to back up his claims, Couch charged that Aaron, an IT specialist for Northrop Grumman in Colorado, had worked with his brother to steal internal DNC emails and then sell them to WikiLeaks. For months, he listened in disbelief as an internet conspiracy entrepreneur named Matt Couch had posted reckless claims on social media accusing him of complicity in the events that led to the July 2016 murder of his brother, former Democratic National Committee staffer Seth Rich.Īs Aaron Rich saw it, the rantings of Couch - a onetime sales manager in the Arkansas Ozarks whose relentless tweeting and aggressive support of President Trump had garnered him more than 100,000 Twitter followers - couldn’t have been more offensive. ![]() WASHINGTON - Aaron Rich had finally had enough. Read and listen to the first five parts here. ![]() This is the sixth and final part in the Yahoo News “ Conspiracyland ” series. ![]()
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