Defamation lawsuit filed against CNN, New York Times and lawyers for Seth Rich family

A federal lawsuit filed this morning accuses CNN, The New York Times, and Vox of smearing Texas financial advisor Ed Butowsky with false claims about his role in investigating the murder of Democratic National Employee Seth Rich.

The lawsuit, which was filed in the Sherman Division of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, also accuses lawyers in New York and Chicago of maliciously prosecuting a bogus lawsuit on behalf of Seth Rich’s parents, Joel and Mary Rich.

Full disclosure: I’m one of Ed’s attorneys, and I filed the lawsuit on his behalf. I don’t have a lot of time to blog about the case, but I tried to write the lawsuit in plain English (see Paragraphs 1-7 and 33-84), and you can read it by clicking here.

DPS IS STILL HIDING THE BALL

Sometimes when you request records from the government, you can tell a lot by what they refuse to give you. In the eight days between February 20 and February 28, 2019, the Texas Department of Public Safety denied three of my public information requests.

In the letter dated February 20, 2019, DPS refused to release the retirement letter that deputy inspector general Louis Sanchez sent to the Public Safety Commission, i.e., the commission that oversees DPS. I’m told Mr. Sanchez referenced a complaint against Inspector General Rhonda Fleming, alleging (among other things) that Ms. Fleming discriminated against her ex-girlfriend by blocking the ex-girlfriend’s promotion to captain. As my readers know from previous blog posts, I have a pretty low opinion of the Office of Inspector General (a.k.a. the “Office of Damage Control“) under Ms. Fleming’s leadership.

In the February 27, 2019 letter, DPS refused to release records about illegal immigrants allegedly working in the Capitol Grille inside the Texas Capitol Building. My DPS sources tell me the restaurant reported a theft, and the agent assigned to investigate soon discovered multiple immigrants working without identification. That might not be such a big deal but for the fact that DPS gets millions from the legislature to patrol the Mexican border, and yet it cannot keep illegal immigrants (without ID) from entering a secured building, i.e., the capitol building. I’m told top officials in DPS are trying to keep the incident quiet. [Continued on p. 2].