Fox News had a very unique mandate attached to their settlement with the parents of murdered DNC staffer Seth Rich, Joel Rich and Mary Rich, stemming from their lawsuit against the cable news network: the seven-figure settlement amount would stay a secret until after the presidential election.
The revelations came Sunday night in a column from The New York Times media columnist Ben Smith.
The lawsuit from the Rich family came after Fox News fueled the conspiracy theory that Seth Rich, a DNC staffer police believe was killed in a botched robbery, was actually assassinated because he sent DNC emails to Wikileaks. The baseless theory was pushed by supporters of President Donald Trump in a bid to absolve Russia in the DNC hack.
“Fox’s decision to settle with the Rich family came just before its marquee hosts, Lou Dobbs and Sean Hannity, were set to be questioned under oath in the case, a potentially embarrassing moment. And Fox paid so much that the network didn’t have to apologize for the May 2017 story on FoxNews.com,” Smith reported.
Smith then added in his column that Fox “insisted” on the settlement coming after Election Day.
(Excerpt) Read more in: Mediaite