The far right has been collectively fixated on one conspiracy theory for the past two weeks: that a Democratic National Committee staffer was murdered on the orders of Hillary Clinton (or something along those lines).

Now, even Fox News — which helped kickstart the recent revival of the conspiracy — is distancing itself from the story.

Fox News on Tuesday announced a retraction of the story it published on May 16 about the staffer. In that post, Fox News claimed that a "federal investigator" had seen evidence that Seth Rich had been a source for WikiLeaks. That fed conspiracy theorists who believed this caused Democrats/Hillary Clinton to have Rich murdered.

"On May 16, a story was posted on the Fox News website on the investigation into the 2016 murder of DNC Staffer Seth Rich. The article was not initially subjected to the high degree of editorial scrutiny we require for all our reporting. Upon appropriate review, the article was found not to meet those standards and has since been removed," reads a post on FoxNews.com announcing the retraction. "We will continue to investigate this story and will provide updates as warranted."

Since the story came out, the far right has been pushing the story online, while Sean Hannity, one of the few Fox News evening personalities still at Fox News, has also been championing the story.

Despite the retraction, Hannity still tweeted out about the theory right around the time that Fox News released its retraction.

Rich was shot to death in Washington, D.C. in July 2016. His murder, which remains unsolved, was seized on by online conspiracy theorists who linked the death to Rich's work with the DNC.

The conspiracy theory had cooled until recently when a local Fox broadcast affiliate posted a story quoting a private investigator (who is also a Fox News contributor) as saying he was aware of evidence that Rich had been a source for WikiLeaks — a key part of the previous conspiracy theory. Fox News then followed with their own story.

Those reports have since been debunked, but that has not stopped the far right as well as Fox News from pushing the theory — despite requests from Rich's family that their son's death not be used as political fodder. </s> NEW YORK -- Fox News on Tuesday retracted a May 16 story on an investigation into the murder of Democratic National Convention staffer Seth Rich, who was killed near his home last summer.

"The article was not initially subjected to the high degree of editorial scrutiny we require for all our reporting. Upon appropriate review, the article was found not to meet those standards and has since been removed," the company said in a statement Tuesday.

"We will continue to investigate this story and will provide updates as warranted," the statement read.

Rich, 27, was fatally shot in the Bloomingdale neighborhood of Washington in July 2016. The Washington Metropolitan Police Department is still investigating the incident.

His family has rejected conspiracy theories about Rich -- theories that blew up again with this month's Fox News report, according to CBS affiliate WUSA-TV, in Washington, D.C.

"We are a family committed to the facts, not fake evidence that surfaces every few months to fill the void and distract," Rich's parents said in a statement to WUSA-TV.

The original Fox story -- posted on FoxNews.com and the network's Washington affiliate, WTTG-TV -- claimed that a "federal source" said Rich was communicating with WikiLeaks before he was murdered, potentially leaking thousands of DNC emails to the website. It also suggested that the local police department had been told to back down from the investigation.

Fox's Sean Hannity repeatedly covered the unfounded reports on-air and he often defended the story on Twitter.

On Tuesday, he pushed back despite Fox's retraction.

"And all you in the liberal media, I am not Fox.com or FoxNews.com -- I retracted nothing," Hannity said on his radio show. </s> Fox News said it had retracted a story about the murder of Seth Rich, a former Democratic National Committee staffer who was killed in Washington, D.C. last July and which has provided fodder for Sean Hannity, the network’s longest-serving primetime host. Hannity has in recent days promoted a debunked theory that Rich was killed in exchange for providing internal documents to Wikileaks, prompting statements of outrage from his family.

“On May 16, a story was posted on the Fox News website on the investigation into the 2016 murder of DNC Staffer Seth Rich. The article was not initially subjected to the high degree of editorial scrutiny we require for all our reporting. Upon appropriate review, the article was found not to meet those standards and has since been removed,” the network said in a posting online Tuesday. “We will continue to investigate this story and will provide updates as warranted. ”

Right-wing outlets including Breitbart and The Drudge Report have suggested with items and links that Rich could have been killed in retribution for the leak of DNC emails during last year’s presidential campaign, an act that has largely been attributed to Russian interference. The theory about Rich’s murder has yet to be proven.

Fox News lent the story new momentum last week when it posted an item about the story after Rod Wheeler, a Fox News contributor who is also a private investigator Rich’s family has hired, was shown on Fox affiliate WTTG suggesting he had evidence linking Rich to Wikileaks. Subsequently, Wheeler told CNN he had no evidence.

Theories around Rich have helped fill recent segments on “Hannity,” Fox News 10 p.m. primetime mainstay. It could not be learned if Hannity was planning to discuss the new development and Fox News’ retraction on his show this evening. </s> On May 16, a story was posted on the Fox News website on the investigation into the 2016 murder of DNC Staffer Seth Rich. The article was not initially subjected to the high degree of editorial scrutiny we require for all our reporting. Upon appropriate review, the article was found not to meet those standards and has since been removed.

We will continue to investigate this story and will provide updates as warranted. </s> The Fox News Channel has retracted a week-old story based on a groundless conspiracy theory involving the death of a staffer for the Democratic National Committee, conceding it did not meet the network's standards.

The retracted May 16 online story claimed to report as fact that the late Seth Rich, a 27-year-old Democratic National Committee staffer, was actually the person who leaked tens of thousands of emails from the DNC to WikiLeaks and that his murder was tied to that action. Rich was fatally shot last July in what police have called a botched robbery and there is no evidence known publicly to suggest he did share those emails. The Rich family had publicly pleaded with Fox News and others to stop trading in such speculation absent facts.

"The article was not initially subjected to the high degree of editorial scrutiny we require for all our reporting," the Tuesday statement read. "Upon appropriate review, the article was found not to meet those standards." The Fox News statement did not apologize or specify what went wrong or how it did so, and it did not bear the name of its author. But it promised to continue to investigate the story and provide updates.

Fox News' star host Sean Hannity, who had pushed the theory relentlessly, said on his radio show that he retracted nothing. He also tweeted the importance of finding out the truth. On television Tuesday night, Hannity said he would no longer talk about the story "out of respect for the family's wishes — for now."

Yet Hannity, a leading Donald Trump advocate and confidant, did not apologize or say the story was wrong. Instead, he pivoted to assailing the "destroy-Trump media [and] the Democrats."

The public disclosure of the content of those DNC emails threw Hillary Clinton's campaign into turmoil during the 2016 election and led to the resignation of the chairwoman of the DNC, though they did not contain any extraordinary revelations.

The embrace of the conspiracy theory around Rich's death by Hannity and others caused similar tumult at Fox News this month, revealing and deepening rifts between its journalists and the opinion side that propels its economic success, according to several people at the network.

The handling of the story also exposed the tentativeness of the network's leadership after the departure of prominent and longtime executives, including former chairman Roger Ailes and former co-president Bill Shine. Rupert Murdoch, whose family controls Fox's parent company, is acting as the network's CEO. (Ailes, who died May 18, had been accused of sexual harassment by many women and Shine had been accused of enabling or hiding his behavior. Both men denied those charges.)

A version of the Fox News' May 16 online story ran on the Fox local station in Washington, D.C., Fox 5, the night before. Journalists and executives within Fox watched with growing alarm as Hannity, the network's fixture at 10 p.m., repeatedly legitimized suspicion that Rich's death was linked to the DNC leaks.

The claim about Rich's death has also been embraced on the air by former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, a Fox News contributor. As far back as August, Fox host Eric Bolling compared the story to something out of the Showtime spy thriller Homeland and called Rich's killing "a hit."

The May 16 FoxNews.com report claiming proof of Rich's involvement in the DNC email leaks was used by Trump defenders to deflect growing concerns on Capitol Hill and among current and former intelligence officials about the nature of contacts during the campaign between Trump's circle and figures with ties to Vladimir Putin's regime in Russia.

Breitbart News and the Gateway Pundit were among the other sites that trafficked in the conspiracy theory — as did the Twitter account for the Russian embassy in London. Yet the story had a particular Fox imprint: The May 15 Fox 5 report cited as its source a private investigator who worked for the Rich family named Rod Wheeler, who has been a paid Fox News contributor. Wheeler later said he had relied on the statement of a Fox 5 producer who had prepared him for the segment.

As it happens, Wheeler had been hired not by the Riches but by a conservative Dallas investor named Ed Butowsky on their behalf. Butowksy has appeared periodically as a commentator on Fox News and Fox Business. He had his own personality page on Fox's website until shortly after I publicly pointed that fact out last week.

Hannity has told others at the network that Fox needs him more than ever since last month's departure of former star host Bill O'Reilly. (O'Reilly also left after facing sexual harassment charges he disputes.)

Hannity told viewers Tuesday night that he would stay at Fox News "as long as they seem to want me" but cited critics who he said were trying to silence him, such as the liberal advocacy group Media Matters. Hannity called such efforts "liberal fascism."

Yet many critics of the story could be found on the right — even among conservative voices in Murdoch's own vast media holdings.

On May 21, Seth Mandel, opinion page editor of the Murdoch-owned New York Post, tweeted: "Why are you doing this to them? Why are you tormenting a grieving family like this? Please, Sean. Please. Stop doing this. Please."

New York Post columnist John Podhoretz wrote in the magazine Commentary, which he edits, that the theory is "the unwitting catspaw of an authoritarian government in Moscow."

Podhoretz continued: "It should go without saying that defaming a dead man by asserting he was killed for doing something criminal is a great evil."

And National Review editor Jonah Goldberg, a Fox News contributor, has been a constant thorn to Hannity on Twitter over the Seth Rich story. Goldberg is author of a book whose title is apparently familiar to Hannity: Liberal Fascism.

Fox News founder Roger Ailes famously hated to retract any reports, arguing it showed weakness and simply gave more fodder to the network's critics.

In the post-Ailes era at Fox News, the news side won this round, even though the retraction was grudging, lacked specificity and did not include an apology. But that victory took a full week — on a story with major national stakes involving a young man's death. </s> The Wisconsin State Court of Appeals has agreed to hear a motion to discuss new evidence in the case of Steven Avery, best known as the subject of Netflix’s immensely popular “Making a Murderer” documentary series.

According to Fox 11, Avery’s attorney Kathleen Zellner, filed the motion, which will be heard in the state’s lower court. She alleges that investigators violated state law by mishandling evidence in the case of Teresa Halbach, whose 2005 murder Avery and his nephew Brendan Dassey are currently serving life in prison for.

The report notes that the subject of Zellner’s complaint stems from bones found in a gravel pit off the Avery property. She hopes to have them tested to see if they are Halbach’s. If they are, it undermines the state’s theory that she was killed and her body was burned on the Avery property. She also notes that a 2011 report indicates bone fragments were returned to the Halbach family without Avery’s defense being notified.

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“We are delighted the appellate court granted the motion to remand to the circuit court to supplement the record with our new evidence that the State has destroyed material evidence by giving the bones back to the Halbach family,” Zellner told Fox 11 in a statement. “We believe Mr. Avery will be granted a new trial for this serious violation of both Wisconsin and federal law."

Later, she tweeted about the court’s decision.

“Avery Update: We Won!!!!!! Back to the circuit court. #TruthWins @llifeafterten @ZellnerLaw @TManitowoc @michellemalkin #MakingaMurderer,” she wrote.

“We are going to have an extraordinary number of constitutional violations when we are done. The COA is letting us create an avalanche of evidence in this record. Higher courts rule. #TruthWins @michellemalkin @EFMoriarty #MakingaMurderer #WorkWithKZ,” Zellner said in a follow-up tweet.

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Speaking to Fox News previously, Zellner, who was the subject of the 2018 follow up to "Making a Murderer," noted that she will not stop fighting for Avery’s freedom and that she believes in his innocence.

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“My experience with my clients… has been that someone who’s innocent just never stops trying to clear themselves,” she explained. “I’ve always said if Steven Avery were offered a deal tomorrow, that if he would admit to the murder he could serve one more year and be free, but convicted of the murder, he would never do that. He would rather die in prison… He believes very strongly that if the evidence, the correct evidence is presented, that the system will eventually work.” </s> Roger Ailes, the bombastic and controversial founder and CEO of Fox News who was ousted last year in a sexual harassment scandal, has died, Fox News reported Thursday.

Ailes, who reshaped television news over five decades in the TV and entertainment industry, was 77.

HIs death was announced in a statement by his wife, Elizabeth Ailes, according to Fox News.

"I am profoundly sad and heartbroken to report that my husband, Roger ailes, passed away this morning," she said.

She called him "a loving husband" and "patriot."

The cause of death was not immediately clear.

While Fox News on Twitter was quick to issue a report of Ailes' death, the Fox News cable channel was slower to broadcast the surprising news.

At 9 a.m., at least a half hour after the news broke on most outlets, Fox anchor Bill Hemmer, looking shaken, reported Ailes death to his audience, ending his brief report by saying, softly, "Wow!"

Ailes resigned July 21 following a storm over a sexual harassment lawsuit filed by former Fox anchor Gretchen Carlson. The suit triggered similar claims from other women and an in-house investigation at Fox.

Ailes strongly denied the claim, but stepped down. </s> Forensic psychiatrist Steven Pitt worked on a number of high-profile crime cases throughout his life: he consulted on the JonBenét Ramsey case, the infamous unsolved 1996 murder of a child beauty pageant queen, and aided police as they investigated Arizona’s Baseline Killer in 2006. And on Thursday afternoon Pitt, 59, was shot dead outside of his office in Scottsdale, Arizona — placing him at the center of a series of killings currently being investigated by local police.

The day after Pitt’s murder, the Washington Post reports, two paralegals — Veleria Sharp, 48, and Laura Anderson, 49 — were also shot dead in Scottsdale. Police say they believe that the murders are related, though it’s unclear how. And by Saturday, they had a fourth victim on their hands: psychologist and counselor Marshall Levine, 72, who was found dead from a gunshot wound inside his office.

Early reports are indicating that the suspected murderer was found dead by suicide in a local hotel early on Monday morning.

The Cut will update this post as more information becomes available. </s> The mother of a serial killer behind the slayings of three women in Ohio was fatally stabbed early Saturday morning in an attack at her home in Cleveland that also injured three children, according to officials.

The Cleveland Police Department said the incident happened around 12:15 a.m. at a home on Cleveland's east side.

The suspect, identified as 18-year-old Jaylen Latrell Plummer, alleged entered the home and starting stabbing Diane Madison, 62, and three other children -- two 10-year-old's and a 12-year-old, as they were sleeping in their bedrooms, according to police.

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Two of the children were able to get out of the house and run to a neighbor’s house, where they called the police, FOX8 reported.

Police said that after stabbing the children, Plummer got in the shower where he was discovered and arrested by arriving officers. The 18-year-old had to take to the hospital for treatment for multiple cuts to his hands.

Madison was discovered dead at the scene and had sustained multiple stab wounds. She is the mother of notorious serial killer Michael Madison, according to FOX8.

Michael Madison was sentenced to death in 2016 after being convicted of killing three women and wrapping their bodies in garbage bags.

The bodies of 38-year-old Angela Deskins, 28-year-old Shetisha Sheeley, and 18-year-old Shirellda Terry were found in July 2013 near the East Cleveland apartment building where Madison lived. Madison told police he strangled two of them but couldn't remember killing the third.

Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Timothy J. McGinty had described Madison as a trophy keeper who was inspired by the earlier case of Cleveland serial killer Anthony Sowell, who was convicted in the deaths of 11 women.

Madison's attorney never contested his guilt at trial. The defense instead had focused on saving his life by presenting evidence that Madison suffered lasting psychological damage from abuse as a youngster.

One of the children stabbed in Saturday's early-morning rampage is Michael's child, FOX8 reported.

All three of the children were taken to a children's hospital and were expected to survive their injuries, WOIO reported.

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Plummer is the grandson of Diane Madison, and the brother of two of the children who were stabbed in the attack, according to FOX8.

Officials have not said what may have motivated the stabbing spree. In a court appearance on Monday, Plummer entered a not guilty plea and a judge ordered he be held on a $2 million bond, FOX8 reported. He is scheduled to appear in court again on July 8.

Fox News' Cristina Corbin and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Fox News retracts their claims regarding the murder.