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Seth Rich DC Filing - Eden Letter To Court
Seth Rich DC Filing - Eden Letter To Court
EDEN P. QUAINTON
QUAINTON LAW, PLLC
33 TYSON LANE
PRINCETON, NJ 08540
During the most recent telephonic conference between the parties and in your subsequent
order, dated March 20, 2020, your Honor requested that the parties provide a list of outstanding
document requests, document subpoenas and deposition subpoenas. Defendants' list is set forth
below. In reviewing this list, Defendants believe it would be helpful to keep in mind the core
issues on which Aaron Rich ("Aaron" or "Plaintiff') bears the burden of proof. First, Aaron
must establish that it would be false to state or suggest that Aaron (I) participated in leaking
emails to Wikileaks, (2) received funds in exchange for leaking or participating in leaking emails
to Wikileaks, (3) interfered with "investigations," (4) "knew the hit was coming" and/or warned
Seth that he was in danger and (5) engaged in an altercation with Donna Brazile before Seth
Rich's murder. Philadelphia Newspapers, Inc. v. Hepps, 475 U.S. 767, 768-69 (l 986)(on
matter of public concern, plaintiff cannot recover damages without also showing that the
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statements at issue are false). Second, if Aaron can carry his burden of proving the falsity of the
allegedly defamatory statements to the satisfaction of the trier of fact, he must then prove than
any such statements were made with a degree of fault. Moss v. Stockard, 580 A.2d 1011, 1022
(D.C. 1990)(defamation plaintiff must show statements were false, defamatory and published
with some degree of fault). Defendants maintain that Aaron Rich is (and deliberately made
himself) a public figure who appeared on television, radio and the Internet to promote his false
statements about Defendants. As a result, Aaron must establish that Defendants acted with "with
knowledge" that [their statements were false or with "reckless disregard" of whether or not they
were false. New York Times v. Sullivan, 376 U.S. 254,280, 84 S.Ct. 710, 11 L.Ed.2d 686
(1964). The New York Times v. Sullivan "actual malice'' standard must be proven with "clear
and convincing evidence." Beeton v. D.C., 779 A.2d 918, 920 (D.C. 2001).
emails to Wikileaks is intertwined with the question of his brother Seth's involvement, not only
because one of the allegedly defamatory statements is that Aaron assisted his brother, but also
because Aaron Rich has maintained it is a baseless conspiracy theory to question the claim of
certain elements of the U.S. intelligence community that the DNC emails at issue were hacked
by Russian military intelligence and transmitted to a shadowy figure known as Guccifer 2.0 and
then communicated them to Wikileaks. If this dominant narrative can be shown to be false or
questionable, it cannot be "reckless" to suggest that Seth Rich was involved in leaking emails,
particularly in light of the well-known statements of Sy Hersh and Ellen Ratner. By the same
token, it cannot be reckless to have relied on statements linking Aaron to Seth Rich or indicating
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In addition, for reasons that arc obscure, Plaintiff has chosen to advance a wildly
Couch to defame Aaron Rich. This conspiracy theory is utterly devoid of any factual
underpinnings, but it means that Mr. Butowsky is potentially liable for statements made by Mr.
Couch and that Mr. Butowsky has an interest, therefore, in defeating Plaintiffs claims of falsity
with respect to Mr. Couch and/or in establishing that Mr. Couch did not make any statements
A. Emails. While Plaintiff is demanding that Defendants' scour all their email
and social media accounts (to what end is unclear), Aaron has not been forthcoming about his
own and Seth's email accounts. There are five email accounts that were not initially disclosed
to us:
Defendants are entitled to complete disclosure of the relevant information from these accounts.
subpoena issued by Plaintiff to eBay for records relating to Seth Conrad Rich. The subpoena is
set fo1th as Ex. I to the Declaration of Eden P. Quainton, dated March 27, 2020 (the "Quainton
Deel.") hereto. eBay's response is set forth as Ex. 2 to the Quainton Deel. This response
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indicates that an eBay account related to Seth Rich was set up with the pseudonym
this account was registered after Seth's death, on September 18, 2017. The email Iinked to the
account
Quainton Deel., Ex. 3. 1 Defendant Butowsky then issued a subpoena to Google for information
forth on Quainton Deel., Ex. 4, showing that the account had been set up
used by parties particularly keen to preserve the confidentiality and, some might say, the secrecy
of emai I communications. Moreover, there were two logins to the account during 2018,
indicating that whoever had access to the account was still using it.
1 Kim Dotcom is a crucial witness because he has publicly stated that he communicated with
Seth Rich about the leaking of emails to Wikileaks and that Seth must have worked with
someone "close" to him.
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email communications in this litigation - because Plaintiff insists that any suggestion that there is
a link between these accounts and the leak of DNC emails is a "lie" and a "conspiracy theory"
concocted to further a financial and political agenda- Defendants seek all communications from
or to the
account from December 31, 2015 to the present. Notably, Defendants do not seek emails before
2016 and any emails after Seth's murder would presumably be very limited. Plaintiff
need to review all the correspondence during 2016 into and out of this account in order to assess
In addition, Mr. Butowsky's contemplated forensic expert has recently determined that
belongs to Aaron and may hold clues to Aaron's involvement in the leaking of emails to
Wikileaks. Defendants have issued subpoenas to /\OL for information relating to this account,
but Aaron must also provide all information in his possession relating to this account. We do not
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requests for production.2 Plaintiff has completed his production in response to the first request
for production and is either in the process of responding to or has not responded to the remaining
requests. Each of the parties issued their final requests today. The items requested and the
January I, 2016 to the present, including the complete history of all back-up and recovery
Response: Plaintiff has objected on various grounds to this request but has
stated that he will produce responsive documents on a rolling basis. To date no responsive
Response: Plaintiff has objected on various grounds to this request but has
stated that he will produce responsive documents on a rolling basis. To date no responsive
documents have been produced. Defendants have prepared a list of search tenns they are
2 As noted below, Plaintiff has issued five Requests for Production to Mr. Butowsky and four
Requests for Production to Mr. Couch.
3 To the extent there was a typo that indicating Mr. Butowsky was seeking records from 2015,
the request is hereby corrected.
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