Murder of Seth Rich

Seth Rich was an American employee of the Democratic National Convention who was murdered on 10 July 2016 near his home in Bloomingdale, Washington, D.C., having been shot several times. He was found conscious but later died in hospital. Although Washington police chief Cathy L. Lanier suggested Rich may have been killed in an attempted robbery, Rich's watch, phone, and wallet were found on his body. A bounty of $25,000 was offered from the police for information about the death.

There are suspicions that he may have been killed because of a suspected involvement in the DNC email leak, a collection of 19,252 emails and 8,034 attachments which were released by WikiLeaks in July 2016. WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange mentioned Rich in an interview with Dutch television program Nieuwsuur in August 2016: "Whistleblowers often take very significant efforts to bring us material and often at very significant risks," he said. "There's a 27-year-old who works for the DNC who was shot in the back, murdered, just a few weeks ago, for unknown reasons as he was walking down the streets in Washington." Although WikiLeaks have a policy of not revealing sources, there was speculation that Rich was the source of the DNC leaks. Wikileaks announced their own bounty of $20,000 for information leading to a conviction for the murder. Following the news of WikiLeaks' bounty, Seth's father, Joel Rich, said “I hope the additional money helps find out who did this ... I don’t want to play WikiLeaks’ game.” The 2016 Democratic Convention took place between 25–28 July.