Conspiracy Theorist Jerome Corsi Finally Meets a Conspiracy Theory He’s Not Willing to Face Legal Jeopardy Over

Today, Jerome Corsi retracted a piece published in (and still available on) InfoWars last year accusing Seth Rich of leaking DNC emails to WikiLeaks.

On March 5, 2018, Infowars published an article by Dr. Jerome Corsi titled Anti-Trump Left Tries to Revive Dying ‘Russia’ Narrative by Blaming Roger Stone. In that article, Dr. Corsi alleged that Seth Rich and his brother, Aaron Rich, were involved in downloading and leaking emails from the DNC to WikiLeaks.

Dr. Corsi acknowledges that his allegations were not based upon any independent factual knowledge regarding Seth or Aaron Rich. Instead, Dr. Corsi relied primarily on, and quoted from, a column by Adm. James Lyons (Ret.) that was published in the Washington Times on March 2, 2018, but was retracted on September 30, 2018. (The Washington Times’ retraction is available here.)

It was not Dr. Corsi’s intent to rely upon inaccurate information, or to cause any suffering to Mr. Rich’s family. To that end, Dr. Corsi retracts the article and apologizes to the Rich family.

Given the coverage, it seems like the apology may everything to do with Aaron Rich’s lawsuit and nothing to do with a real change of heart. Of particular interest, Corsi did not retract the insinuations he made about Rich in his book, which is due to be released in hardcover form next Tuesday.

The last piece of the puzzle fell in place for me when Seth Rich, an IT worker in the DNC was murdered on July 10, 2016, at approximately 4:30 a.m. EST, as he walked home along the streets of Washington, D.C. The Washington Police Department has kept the investigation of Seth Rich’s murder secret, refusing to release basic information such as an autopsy, or conclusions from police investigative reports. The murder was initially reported as a “robbery gone bad,” until it was realized that Seth Rich still had his wallet, a $2,000 gold necklace, and his wrist watch on him when he was shot. Police rushed to the scene as neighbors heard two gunshots being fired. The assailant(s) fled the scene before police arrived. No assailant has ever been charged with the murder.

The strongest indication that Seth Rich leaked the DNC and Podesta emails to WikiLeaks comes from Julian Assange himself.

In an interview broadcast on the Dutch television program Nieuswsuur on August 9, 2016, the host Eelco Bosch van Rosenthal asked Assange, “The stuff that your sitting on, is an October Surprise in there?”

Assange insisted, “WikiLeaks never sits on material,” even though Assange had previously said WikiLeaks yet has more material related to the Hillary Clinton campaign that had yet to be published.

Then, on his own initiative, without being specifically asked, Assange began talking about Seth Rich.

“Whistleblowers go to significant efforts to get us material, and often very significant risks,” Assange volunteered.

“There’s a twenty-seven year-old that works for the DNC who was shot in the back, murdered, just a few weeks ago, for unknown reasons, as he was walking down the streets in Washington,” Assange continued.

Van Rosenthal objected that the murder of DNC staffer Seth Rich was a robbery.

“No, there’s no findings,” Assange answered.

[snip]

Why was the criminal investigation into Seth Rich’s murder stopped? Simple, because solving that murder would expose that Seth Rich stole the DNC emails, not the Russians. Comey blocked giving immunity to Assange because the Deep State knew Assange could prove Seth Rich stole the DNC emails and got them to WikiLeaks. The basic premise of “Russian Collusion” was a lie—concocted by Hillary and John Podesta, backed up by the CIA and entire corrupt U.S. intelligence apparatus—all designed to frame Donald Trump with a phony Fusion GPS dossier. It stunk. And here I was rapidly becoming a victim of Mueller’s criminal activity.

These are substantially the same allegations made in the InfoWars column. As I noted, Corsi’s book largely serves to hang a bunch of conspiracy theories on a specious claim to have figured out on his own that John Podesta’s emails were being released, which in turn appears to be an attempt to talk his way out of obstruction charges in the Mueller investigation.

That said, the retraction comes long after Washington Times retracted the column on which both the InfoWars column — written at the same time as Corsi first publicly released his cover story for Roger Stone — and his book is seemingly based. And it comes at a time when DOJ appears to be investigating whether Corsi’s job at InfoWars was part of a cover-up.

So it will be interesting to see just how far this retraction goes.

Update: InfoWars has not retracted the story.

As I disclosed last July, I provided information to the FBI on issues related to the Mueller investigation, so I’m going to include disclosure statements on Mueller investigation posts from here on out. I will include the disclosure whether or not the stuff I shared with the FBI pertains to the subject of the post. 

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46 replies
  1. Jaycee says:

    While my comment isn’t directly related to this article, I wanted to ask a question….
    I’m wondering what you’ve heard in relation to Canadian involvement in Russian collusion, particularly any involvement related to media personalities Stefan Molyneux and Ezra Levant , who often interviewed Roger Stone on their programs.

    I’ve found articles that link Levant and his former colleagues from Rebel Media with election tampering in France. It seems to me that that Levant has a lot in common with Stone (they both are dirty tricksters and spin doctors who lack a moral compass) and I get the idea that Levant was trying to pick up some tips from Stone.

    • Jackie says:

      Levant’s scumbaggery goes back decades to when he was a young law-school student advocating for Holocaust deniers to have “free speech” debates at U of Calgary. He’s a deranged hatemonger with an obsessive, stalker-like fixation on the Trudeau family and of course Justin Trudeau in particular. Rebel emerged from the ashes of the defunct Sun News Network (aka “Fox News North,”) a failed TV offshoot of the right-wing Sun/Postmedia tabloid chain. As of right now, Rebel co-founder Hamish Marshall is presently using Cambridge Analytics style tactics to try and ratf*ck the Canadian elections for the Conservatives. This goes unreported in Canada’s pathetic M$M which might even be more skewed than the US M$M was against Hillary Clinton. At least for the most part the US media just gave Trump free airtime and softball questions. Canada’s pundit class is incestuously insular, grotesquely immature, and unapologetically homophobic (“sorry not sorry”), and likes to throw around euphemisms about Trudeau like calling him a rainbow prince impaled upon a unicorn. So much for Canadian politeness. But I digress.

      Anyway, PressProgress.ca reported that Rebel did receive funding from the Mercers to produce Islamophobic two-minute-hate filth.

      https://pressprogress.ca/rebel-media-produced-anti-muslim-propaganda-with-foreign-group-funded-by-trumps-top-donor/

      And, they actually have made videos in Russia.

      https://pressprogress.ca/ezra-levants-rebel-media-is-currently-in-russia-filming-pro-putin-propaganda-videos/

      The Anti-Racist Collective of Canada’s official blog reported on a bizarre party that former Rebel personality, failed Toronto mayoral candidate, and neo-Nazi camgirl Faith Goldy attended with Milo Whatsisyapolis and Jack Posobiec (another onetime Rebel dingbat, who published the “Macron Leaks”), at the home of… Roger Stone.

      http://anti-racistcanada.blogspot.com/2018/09/faith-goldy-displays-her-understanding.html

      Now, Faith was most recently at a “yellow vest” rally with Conservative leader Andrew Scheer (Hamish Marshall’s client) and the even more racist right-wing splinter-party leader Max Bernier, where so-called energy-sector advocates concerned about “economic anxiety” in the oil and gas industry called for assassinating Trudeau, and a Conservative senator even called for the big rig drivers to “roll over every Liberal in the country.” Again, barely any coverage by the M$M even though Russia has their hands in the yellow-vest movement too.

      https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-12-08/pro-russia-social-media-takes-aim-at-macron-as-yellow-vests-rage

      Add to all of that, former PM Harper is still the CPC’s puppeteer and is at the helm of some SPECTRE-like organization called the IDU (“International Democratic Union,” about as “democratic” as the DPRK) that does dirty deals with thugs like Bibi Netanyahu and Hungary’s Viktor Orbán. The latter of whom, I should add, is an anti-Semitic “Soros truther” who recently shuttered a university in Budapest funded by the Open Society Foundations; the dean of which, Michael Ignatieff, preceded Trudeau as leader of the Liberal Party of Canada. So I don’t doubt there’s a northern ratf*cker network in the least and Russia is part of it.

      Note also that Harper recently appeared on Ben Shapiro’s podcast and Ben Shapiro was named in a trial as one of the key figures whose rhetoric had radicalized the Québec City mosque shooter. Someone ought to look into Shapiro’s funding too. Bet you’ll find a lot of the same names popping up.

      There’s a coordinated effort to destabilize Western democracies and install right-wing puppet governments around the world. Canada’s face of it just happens to have a personal angle because Justin Trudeau, like Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama before him, is another polarizing liberal leader who the usual types and a vast conspiracy of sharks in the water love to hate.

      • Eureka says:

        Thank you for taking the time and effort to organize and share this, Jackie. It’s important to be aware of the world-wide links, especially those in our respective neighborhoods. I rarely see such perspectives from Canadians/iennes in the comments here, and none so thorough.

    • Jaycer says:

      I’m going to reply up here to avoid my post being becoming a vertical line. Lol
      Thanks for the info, Jackie.
      I wonder if anyone has some perspective on Warren Kinsella’s possible involvement in any of this.
      I wouldn’t have mentioned him except I see that he recently flipped out on twitter in connection to the SCN Lavalin hearings, and considering that Kinsella appeared to tag team with Levant against Trudeau on the groping allegations last year, I have my suspicions about him.
      Oops…. my name should say Jaycee…I can’t edit my name.

      • bmaz says:

        Listen, you nitwit, “Jaycer”, “Jaycee”, whatever, you are sock puppeting so blatantly that you are puppeting to respond to your own stupid comment.

        Engaging in this kind of charlatan nonsense will result in every version of you being banned from this site. I hope this is crystal clear.

        • Jaycee says:

          Sock puppet for who, bmaz? I wrote the original comment, not the replies, except the one where auto correct changed my name. Marcy can check my IP address, as well as the replies from someone using the handle “Jackie”
          I’m certainly not a sock puppet for anyone, but I’m not surprised I’m being trolled by you. Its par for the course, isn’t it?

        • bmaz says:

          Marcy does not need to check squat. I already did so. And I can see you have appeared as both “Jaycee” and “Jaycer”.

          If you think we don’t have a grip on what is going on on our own site, you are nuts. Please, don’t spew that dishonest junk.

    • P J Evans says:

      Trip left the building.
      There was discussion of this on a different post – you were commenting on that post.

        • Fran of the North says:

          The Cliff’s Notes version is that Trip hasn’t specified why postings have been scarce. Speculation absent commentary from the principal doesn’t advance knowledge or understanding.

          Everyone wishes Trip well, and hopes to see commentary in the near future.

    • orionATL says:

      TRIP! where are you, man?
      get unlost and come on back here and join the discussion.

      i’m missing your commentary:
      – missing your astute observations
      – missing your sense of humor
      – missing your kindness
      – missing your remarkable search abilities.

      illegitimi non carborundum est

  2. Peterr says:

    Given the coverage, it seems like the apology may everything to do with Aaron Rich’s lawsuit and nothing to do with a real change of heart.

    If Rich’s lawsuit made Corsi so nervous that he retracted this InfoWars piece, then I expect Rich’s lawyers will take their lawsuit, amend the paperwork by replacing “InfoWars” with “Corsi’s new book” and making other similar revisions, and then refile it when the book lands.

  3. Michael Keenan says:

    Point: https:// rationalwiki. org/wiki/ Murder_of_Seth_Rich
    Counterpoint: https:// niqnaq. wordpress. com/2018/03/03/ seymour-hersh-passed-on-the-fbi-lie-that-seth-rich-was-demanding-money-in-his-celebrated-much-lauded-interview-with-cassandra-fairbanks-last-year/

    [FYI, these links have been ‘broken’ with blank spaces to prevent community members from accidentally clicking on content from unfamiliar and unvalidated sources. Post this kind of thing at your own website. /~Rayne]

  4. errant aesthete says:

    Interestingly, the Rich family was featured in a noteworthy read from Jane Mayer in the New Yorker today. The Making of the Fox News White House. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/03/11/the-making-of-the-fox-news-white-house#

    “Unlike Glenn Beck, Hannity has been allowed to spew baseless conspiracy theories with impunity. For more than a year, Hannity and other hosts spread the lie that the hacking of Democratic Party e-mails during the 2016 campaign was an inside job. Hannity claimed that the hacking had been committed not by Russian cyber-warfare agents, as the U.S. intelligence community concluded, but by a Democratic staffer named Seth Rich, who had been murdered by unknown assailants on a D.C. street. Benkler and his co-authors studied Fox’s coverage, and found that not only did the channel give the Seth Rich lie a national platform; it also used the conspiracy story as a distraction, deploying it as a competing narrative when developments in Mueller’s investigation showed Trump in a bad light. In 2017, after Rich’s parents demanded an apology and advertisers began shunning the network, Fox finally ran a retraction, and Hannity dropped the story.

  5. Pete says:

    OK Ms. EmptyWheel…a simple yes or know. Is your contact, who is the subject of your disclaimers, on the list of 81?

    No naming names, but get’s us down from a bajillion of the “best people” to just 81 with more coming so I read.

    We haven’t played this game in a while – of course I understand to you it is less likely a game.

    • Rayne says:

      When the time is right the identity will be disclosed. Respect Marcy, the site, and its community by not treating this matter as a game for your amusement because this is NOT a game.

  6. Wajim says:

    “Update: InfoWars has not retracted the story.”

    There’s a hot take. Infowars reports stories? Huh.

  7. progressiveandsane says:

    As Charles Dickens never wrote: “Would that we could all hear the clang of the iron door shutting on that boiled ham of a man!”

  8. Njrun says:

    Did Assange really hint that Rich might have been one of his sources? I thought he never disclosed his sources? But if he did that, the only reason would be to protect Russia. There aren’t strong enough words in the English language to describe how reprehensible these people are.

    • Moll Flanders says:

      Assange has definitely insinuated Rich was a Wikileaks source. He has also offered a $20K reward for info about the murder, made a #sethrich hashtag, and often tweeted about Rich.

      He and Hannity are both unconscionable, reprehensible, psychopathic exploiters of that murder.

      Paraphrasing and condensing an interview I heard (don’t remember the reporter):

      Assange: Sources take great risks to get material to us. A young man who worked for the DNC was murdered.

      Reporter: Was he a source?

      Assange: We never discuss our sources.

      Reporter: Okay, but why did you drag Seth Rich into this conversation? You’re implying he was a source. (Reporter was irate; they argued a while.)

      Assange: We don’t know why Rich was murdered. We don’t know if his murder was related to whistle-blowing activities. We’re still investigating the murder. But, based on what we know so far, I am very, very concerned about the murder of Seth Rich.

      Again, that was paraphrased from memory. Assange & Hannity are scum.

  9. Eureka says:

    …his book, which is due to be released in hardcover form next Tuesday.
    (internal link removed)

    Beware the Ides of March, Jerry.

    This is your weekly-ish reminder that March 15th is a Friday.

  10. I’m New, I’m Sorry. says:

    So, Julian Assange can prove that Seth Rich hacked and leaked, but the mean ol’ Deep State blocked his immunity?

    Too bad he can’t give his proof to a cutout like WikiL….wait a minute.

    These grifting wingnuts make me crazy.

  11. BeingThere says:

    The morning after the 9th June 1016 Trump tower meeting?

    Around that time trump tweeted “How long did it take your staff of 823 people to think that up—and where are your 33,000 emails that you deleted?”

    That 823 staff is an interesting very specific number; to know how many implies access to the DNC email server address-book. Did Trump have a heads up on the number of spearfishing email targets from the hackers?

    New to me is that Seth Rich was on DNC IT staff, would there be chance he might have seen the hackers breaking in and that the hackers discovered they might have been discovered? (If the hackers were logged in they may easily see who else is using or is alerted by their actions on the same system).

    Seems some loose ends here.

    • P J Evans says:

      Tr*mp invents numbers, like his claims about how many of Mueller’s people are Democrats (which he can’t know, because the number he uses keeps changing).

      • allison holland says:

        Trump usually uses the number 13 when referring to the Mueller Team. He must believe it takes 13 angry Democrats to catch a witch. He probably saw that on an infowars commercial.

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