The Slatest

Seth Rich’s Father May Have Caught a Hannity-Endorsed Con Artist Trying to Hack His Late Son’s Email

Kim Dotcom, Sean Hannity.

Michael Bradley/AFP/Getty Images and Reuters/Mike Theiler

Under heavy pressure from late Democratic National Committee staffer Seth Rich’s family, Fox News host Sean Hannity said Tuesday night that he would stop discussing the bogus theory that Hillary Clinton and/or the DNC had Rich murdered on his TV show. Subsequently, however, Hannity appeared to reverse course, promising on Twitter that he would soon reveal “the TRUTH” about why Rich was killed last July. (Police believe the murder may have been a robbery gone wrong; Hannity believes Rich was targeted for death because he was sending DNC emails to WikiLeaks. There is no evidence of the latter theory.)

On that subject, Hannity has in recent days been repeatedly hyping the extremely dubious claims of hacker and publicity hound Kim Dotcom, who dramatically announced this week that he had been an intermediary between Rich and WikiLeaks. The erstwhile Kim Schmitz has no prior connections to WikiLeaks and was caught fabricating emails to support an unrelated but equally sensational conspiracy claim he’d made in 2014; the Washington Post’s David Weigel, moreoever, reported Wednesday that Seth Rich’s father appears to have caught Dotcom or someone close to him trying to hack into his late son’s Gmail account. From Weigel’s piece:

When Seth Rich’s Gmail account received an alert this week from Mega.com, attempting to start a new account on a website created by the New Zealand-based Internet businessman and convicted hacker Kim Dotcom, his family knew that something was off. … According to experts and Rich’s family, the emailed invitation from welcome@mega.nz appeared to be an attempt to gain access to Rich’s email. Joel Rich, who maintains his late son’s Gmail account, did not click the link.

Seth Rich’s father: Smarter than Sean Hannity!