WikiLeaks offers $20,000 reward for information on the murder of Seth Rich, possible DNC leak source.

Mary Rich, the mother of DNC staffer Seth Rich speaks to the press. Washington Post. 

Wikileaks has offered $20,000 as a reward for any information that leads to a conviction for the murder of DNC staffer Seth Rich. Washington Post. Seth Rich was murdered near his townhouse in what police are describing as a robbery gone wrong. But many people believe that Rich was killed because he was either the source of the DNC leaks that showed bias against presidential candidate Bernie Sanders or that he was working with the FBI to help expose election fraud. Julian Assange poured fuel on that fire when he offered the $20,000 reward and seemed to imply on Dutch television that Rich was a source (see below). Though the police say that the murder was a robbery gone wrong, nothing was stolen from Rich. 

My Comment:

Something fishy is going on here. Normally I would dismiss conspiracy theories like this but Julian Assange's comments give me pause. He certainly made it sound like the murder of Seth Rich had something to do with the DNC leaks. Though he did not confirm, and probably will not confirm, that Rich was the source, there is little doubt in my mind that Assange wants the idea that he was the source out there. Why? Well here's a few possible reasons:

1. Assange does have a source or hacker in the DNC that has been feeding him information. Seth Rich was not that source and since he is dead he is the perfect patsy to blame for the actual leaker. I am sure that the DNC is following up right now to see if Seth Rich is the source of the leaks. That leaker or hacker is using the time to escape suspicion and perhaps even gathering more information to be released later. 

I think this is very possible. Assange wants to protect his source and by doing this he may force investigators to waste time. It's kind of a bold move, and a morally ambiguous one since it implies certain things about Seth Rich that aren't true, but I could see it happening. If this scenario is the case, then the death of Rich has nothing to do with anything and is a gigantic red herring that WikiLeaks is using to protect their source.

2. Rich was the leaker but the murder is unconnected. It would not be the first time that some random person was murdered in the Washington DC area. Crime is high there and police have said that armed robberies are happening frequently. This would be a massive coincidence if true but I am guessing that it's also a real possibility. 

Rich could have been the leaker and then got shot and killed randomly. It's also possible that Rich was holding on to the information, as blackmail or as an effort to get people to fess up, and had a dead man's switch that released his information after he died. I know if I was in that situation I would have had that set up. If some random person murdered him then they information could have been released anyways. If so then this is just a coincidence and no foul play other then the murder itself is at hand. It would be tremendously bad luck for the DNC if that was the case, but it's very possible. If it is all a coincidence then expect the next theory to be believed anyways. 

3. Rich was the leaker and was killed in a conspiracy to silence him, or punish him after the fact. I am sure there are a lot of people that believe this but it seems somewhat unlikely to me. Certainly not impossible but people find coincidences hard to believe. It's no hard thing to murder someone like Seth Rich. Such a thing would be rather easy to pull off and this was about the best way to pull off an assassination. I took some criminal investigation courses in college and one of the things we learned is that this kind of case, early in the morning, with no witnesses, outside, with little forensic evidence, is the best way to get away with murder. If I was a hitman, I would have done it the same way, and I am guessing that any professional killer would say the same thing. 

If it is true then this is earthshaking stuff. If the DNC murdered one of their staffers for leaking information to WikiLeaks then the cancer in the DNC is much worse then any of us thought. It's one thing to cheat against Bernie Sanders in the election, but it is quite another to out and out murder someone. If it can be proven then I think heads will roll at the DNC. Perhaps literally. 

That alone makes me suspicious that this was not a hit. Though I can imagine the DNC doing some really stupid stuff, I can't imagine them killing someone over the e-mail leak. To do so would be much worse then the immoral stuff they did in the e-mails. Though they were clearly cheating, nothing that was released was so damaging to the Democrats that it would have destroyed Hillary Clinton's chances or resulted in prosecutions. Dirty laundry was aired but none of the leaks were so devastating that they would risk a murder over it. The only exception is if there are still worse things out there. Assange said that he has more leaks on Hillary Clinton, and that she would go to jail when they are released, so there may be something to the idea.

I also want to point out that Julian Assange and WikiLeaks may believe this is the case even if it is scenario two or even one. They might not have even known who the leaker was, if there was even a leaker, and they may have their own suspicions. And given that they work in a shadow world, they are even less likely to believe in coincidences, even if it really is the case that this murder had noting to do with the DNC leaks. I don't know if I would go so far as to call WikiLeaks conspiracy theorists, but they certainly are paranoid... 

4. Julian Assange just did this to hurt Hillary Clinton. I am only including this one for the sake of completion, since I don't buy it myself. Assange and Clinton certainly don't get along and it seems like Assange likes Trump over Clinton. Assange also has tangled with Barack Obama and the Democrats before. I guess it is possible that he made this up out of whole cloth. 

But I don't buy it. Why? Because hurting Clinton doesn't really help Assange. Donald Trump has no soft spot for WikiLeaks (at least not so far, we will see if Trump changes his mind after an "October Surprise") and he thinks that Edward Snowden is a traitor. In short, I don't know how it serves WikiLeaks interests to help Trump and hurt Clinton this way. Trump hates leakers and I doubt he will help WikiLeaks in any way. 

I also don't think that WikiLeaks would out and out lie like that for such petty reasons. I can see them lying to protect their source, but lying purely out of spite? I don't buy it. Sure they have been very deceptive with some of the things they have posted. The gun cam footage from a helicopter during the Iraq War is a prime example, the so called "Collateral Murder" video showed nothing of the sort. But I don't think they would risk their reputation by making something up so completely. Like I said before, it's possible they think they know what happened and are wrong, but I don't think they are lying here. 

Finally, if it does turn out that this was some kind of giant conspiracy, we will be extremely lucky to find out. Like I said, this was a textbook case of a hard to solve murder and I doubt it will be solved no matter who was involved. The only way I see the crime being solved is if someone talks and the gunman gets arrested. I am not holding my breath for that happening. Still, if I had to put money on it, I think that scenarios one and two are the most likely, with an actual assassination being a slim possibility and Assange making it all up very unlikely. Hopefully one day we will find out the truth.