rod wheeler called me up and said, ed, malia zimmerman misquoted me. said i don't understand because you -- there's e-mails back and forth that you not only approved the quotes but you added to it. matter of fact, at that website that i mentioned rod wheeler's claims.com or dee dee bunking rod wheeler's claims.com, you hear his voice saying the exact quotes he said he didn't say. what rod wheeler did is he called me up. obviously this was all concocted by wheeler. he said malia said that i set eyes on the e-mails. i said rod, you never set eyes on the an e-mails. i know that, you know that. if you set eyes on the e-mails, you would have told me. you never told me. if malia zimmerman who is a wonderful reporter, if she misquoted you, then you know what? then that needs to be taken back. i said rod, show me where that quote exists. by the way, chris, i'll ask anybody, show me where the quote exists where it says rod wheeler set eyes on the e-mails. i've never seen that's what i was responding to. >> so when you were saying you're going to win an award fo

malia zimmerman of fox news was. >> let me get some of the news out there.uggested, i believe, that as part of the lawsuit, you wanted to pose both president trump and the former press secretary, sean spicer. first of all, do you think that's realistic? do you think that might happen? >> we're going to treat this case the way we treat any other case. we're going to seek to take testimony in terms of getting documents that might be relevant and then we're going to seek to take depositions and the president might -- through his counsel, try and get a protective order, might say he's too busy. he finds time to play over 20 rounds of golf. hopefully he'll find time to sit down with me and answer questions. >> what would you hope to gain from that. >> it's part of the bigger picture here. what you see is the motivation for ultimately defaming rod wheeler in the may 16th article. why did they want to attribute quotes to him that weren't true? as we set forth in the complaint, the reason for that was because the white house in conjunction with fox wanted to steer t

the network released a statement saying, "the accusation that foxnews.com published malia zimmerman's to help detract from russian collusion is completely erroneous. the retraction of the story is still being investigated" the statement says, and no evidence rod wheeler was misquoted by zimmerman. fox news vehemently denies the lawsuit and this has nothing to do with race. thinking the president wa zscs u briefed and new about this, is will be interesting to see play out in court. one damning piece of information, makes you roll your eyes, the way the business is supposed to work and how it sometimes works in this white house, sean spicer confirms a month before the story ran, the investor and the investigator, met at the white house with spicer, to brief them on what they were uncovering. >> this is an, something that started as internet conspiracy theory, and that has made its way at least in terms of, with sean spicer, into the white house. and that -- it's -- it's problematic. it's troubling. and i would be remiss if i didn't say i just feel terrible for seth rich's family. that t

what butowsky wanted to do, working has been in glove with a fox news reporter named malia zimmerman from the outset, that he wanted to prove that seth rich in some ways was linked to the dnc e-mails and there may have been a cover-up and somehow democratic operatives or figures may have been involved in some way in seth rich's death. so you have a guy who basically is saying that fox news as a news organization and a trump backer are working in concert to arrive at a preconceived narrative and story rather than simply following a journalistic effort to figure out what the facts. are. >> brown: and he's claiming even more, that this was coordinated perhaps with the white house, this meeting with sean spicer and the allegations that president trump himself might have looked at the script or known about this story. >> right. let's disentangle what we know from what we don't know. what we know is it is confirmed all three men, sean spicer, at that time the white house press secretary, ed butowsky, the investor and backer, and rod wheeler, the investigator, all say that they were there a

. >> the reporter at fox news malia zimmerman wrote that story.mediately challenged her saying, that's simply not true. you and i both know that's not true. and she said her bosses told her to leave the quotes in there. i said why would you leave something in an article that you know is not true? that's why we're here today. >> wheeler says because fox news pinned a false story on him that, his reputation has been essentially damaged. fox news for the report denies that the story was designed to detract from russian collusion narrative. they say fox has no evidence that rob wheeler was misquoted. joining us, david. what a great scoop. congratulations on that first of all. and let's start with how rod wheeler wound up in the middle of this in the first place. >> well it's almost, not quite but almost a hermetically sealed universe. you've got ed who is the pitted figure. unpaid figure that appeared on fox news, fox business as a supporter of the president. he decides in february he's going to help out the rich family. after all the murder of seth r

wallace, fox' president of news, said in a statement: the accusation that foxnews.com published malia zimmerman'sry to help detract from coverage of the russia collusion issue is completely erroneous. the retraction is still being investigated internally, and we have no evidence that rod wheeler was misquoted by zimmerman. additionally, fox news vehemently denies the race discrimination claims in the lawsuit. the dispute has nothing to do with race. the story was first reported by npr. wheeler was hired to investigate seth rich's death, quote: the president just read the article, he wants the article out immediately. but he now says he was only joking, and he challenges >> wasn't serious because rod wheeler was always looking for a job because he has no money, and by the way, this lawsuit is all about rod wheeler trying to get money because he messed up. by the way, i've never talked to president trump in my life, and trump has need to do with this. >> the white house spokesman told me yesterday that butowsky had asked for ten minutes to catch up, didn't ask him to do anything, and spicer took no

fox news said the accusation that foxnews.com publisheded malia zimmerman's story to help detract from completely erroneous. the retraction of this story is still being investigated internally, and we have no evidence that rod wheeler was misquoted by zimmerman. wheeler also claims in the suit he and butowsky met with then white house spokesman sean spicer in april and provided him with a copy of his investigative notes. he alleges spicer asked for regular updates on the story, something wheeler believes butowsky did. back in may, spicer denied knowledge of the story. >> i don't -- i'm not aware of -- i generally, i don't get updates on dnc -- former dnc staffers. i'm not aware of that. >> now spicer has confirmed to nbc news that the meeting actually did take place and that the pair, quote, came in and told me about the story they were working on for fox. the white house insisted yesterday they had no involvement in the story, but in the lawsuit, wheeler cites both a text message and voice mail from butowsky in which he allegedly said not to add any more pressure, but the president ju

the accusation that fox news.com published malia zimmerman's story to help detract from coverage of thellusion issue is completely erroneous. it is still being investigated internally and we have no evidence that rod wheeler was misquoted by zimmerman. joining me from politico and from "vanity fair." explain how horrible this indecency seems to be, to take someone who died in the streets of washington, in an apparent street crime. that's horrible. and then to try to smear the lost person in the face of the parents with a charge he had something 22nd stealing dnc documents and putting they will out and getting the russians to take the blame for it. an absurd story. >> the allegations in this lawsuit are shocking and really, shows what lengths possibly the trump white house went to to concoct a fake news story to distract from the russia scandal. this shows fox news has become the media article of the trump white house. and ed butowsky, the wealthy trump surrogate, financed this apparent fake news story that he then as this lawsuit alleges, coached them how to frame the story and push it

. >> the reporter from fox news, malia zimmerman wrote that story.ediately challenged her and said this is simply not true, you and i both know that's not true. she say her bosses told her to leave the quotes in there. that's why we're here today. >> wheeler alleges that's how the president wanted the story. we don't know if that's true. at the very least can we say the white house did nothing to kill a story which it knew to be totally false. >> i think on the false news side the ethics of fox behavior here are they're lacking to say the least. the idea that the bosses wanted this out there, they are pushing the story, it's disturbing. from a journalic ethics point of view this is a disaster for fox news. on the white house side i think it's americaier, it's unclear exactly how much involvement there was at the warehouse. we know sean spicer had this meeting with wheeler where they talked about the investigation. spicer suggest there went any other conversations after that, the lawsuit contradicts him. now the lawsuit also says steve bannon was in t

as he said malia zimmerman and ed admitted these quotes weren't right.id, you know what, these are records that you never said but you're going to win an award for having said them. >> the best legal defamation point is whatever happened we're at place where everyone including fox news said part of this was wrong. then you have the other part of your complaint which is this documentary evidence and text that the president of the united states was personally involved in reviewing this story before it was published and putting that out. >> i learned about that from ed. i saw the e-mails and have seen them where he said the president has reviewed the story. this is the story that the reporter was going to release. this is before the story was released. this is what he sent to me. the president has reviewed this story and wants it out there. >> wow. hold on. >> there comes from ed. >> what did you think when you got that text? >> first of all, i'm thinking why would the president have to review a story pertaining to the death of a guy this d.c. why would the

you claimed that the fox reporter, malia zimmerman, made up two quotes in this article atri attributing. what do you say ifalse? >> well, the quotes that she added to her story specifically references me as saying that i knew for a fact that the decedent in this case, seth rich, sent e-mails to wikileaks. and that just was totally fabricated. i never said that. let me also go back real quickly, stephanie, and say this. my heart and prayers go out to the rich family. i hate, stephanie, that they have to endure all of this stuff that's in the media. i even reached out to the father of aaron rich the day after this story broke -- >> seth rich. >> that's right, seth rich. the day after this story broke. i said, this is terrible for this story to be published, i told him that. i said i'm hoping that fox will retract that story because those quotes clearly did not come from me. >> you went on fox news, though, after the story was published. >> right. >> why didn't you make it clear then? >> well, i did make it clear that i never said those things. i never made those quotes. i also made it cle

he knew it and ed knew it and so did malia zimmerman.d i challenged them immediately. >> reporter: fox retracted the bogus story a week after it was published. fox news told cnn in a statement today that the accusations that fox helped to detract from coverage of russia collusion is completely erroneous and that it has no evidence that rod wheeler was misquoted. ed butowsky told cnn it was all just a joke. and today white house press secretary sarah huckabee sanders pushed back on allegations the white house played a role in this scheme. >> the president had no knowledge of this story and it's completely untrue that he or the white house involvement in the story. >> reporter: randi kaye, cnn, new york. >> randi got this statement from the attorney for rod wheeler who told her he wanted to depose the president. the attorney says, "we're going do litigate this case as we would any other. we want to talk to anyone who has information, that means the president and sean spicer." joining me is brian stelter. this guy, wheeler, this private det

malia zimmerman and ed butowski. that was my source for them.n i asked about the federal investigator i asked was this guy credible, the response was yes. after the story broke and this is important, quickly, chris, after the story broke i immediately, i didn't waste time, challenged malia about the quotes she put in the story. i asked her to contact the federal investigator to talk to him and to give his information to the d.c. police and i was told i could not talk to this guy. >> one quick thing for you, jean. i know the lawyer here is usually ignored in these interviews, not tonight. proof that he was misquoted, i know it is a little tricky. you could look at it as a demonstration of a non- existent fact. but is there anything you can show in the lawsuit that will demonstrate your client was misquoted? >> sure. i mean aside from the fact that we have a 33-page complaint that is full of quotes from audio, from text messages, from e-mails, these aren't just allegations about rod saying what happened. we thoroughly checked everything. we listen