The family of a Democratic National Committee staffer who was shot and killed in Washington last summer denied a report that their son leaked more than 44,000 emails to WikiLeaks before his death.
"As we've seen through the past year of unsubstantiated claims, we see no facts, we have seen no evidence, we have been approached with no emails and only learned about this when contacted by the press," the family said in a statement released Tuesday afternoon. "Even if tomorrow, an email was found, it is not a high enough bar of evidence to prove any interactions as emails can be altered and we've seen that those interested in pushing conspiracies will stop at nothing to do so."
Earlier Tuesday, Fox News reported that 27-year-old Seth Rich may have been the one who leaked information about the DNC to WikiLeaks that showed, among other things, that the DNC favored Hillary Clinton over Bernie Sanders in the presidential primary.
The report states federal law enforcement investigators found 44,053 emails and 17,761 attachments between DNC leaders from January 2015 to May 2016 were sent by Rich to Gavin MacFayden, an American reporter and WikiLeaks director based in London who is now dead. That information was found in a FBI forensic report on Rich's computer done within days of his murder.
Later in the day, Rich family spokesman Brad Bauman told NBC News the Fox News report was bogus.
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A former law enforcement officer with firsthand knowledge of the investigation on Monday said Wheeler's claim about Rich's laptop was incorrect because the device had been searched and yielded no emails related to WikiLeaks. In addition, the FBI never looked over the evidence.
