they present him rob wheeler. nusual degree of documentation in this lawsuit is that from the outset this was a vehicle, according to lawsuit, according to wheeler for him to essentially exonerate the president, exonerate the trump campaign to its ties of russia. saying these hacks of thousands of e-mails released from the democratic national committee last year, they were done in an insider. once more, there was a coverup and that might be linked to the m ds themselves. as far as we can tell, as far as we know, there was no basis to make that allegation in the story. but the story was the fruit of the seed that was planted by ed, if to believe the evidence and the material presented by rod wheeler's lawsuit. >> do you get from your reporting that rod wheeler understand what enh e took this job that his job was to essentially frame him as the person who stole and leaked those dnc e-mails? >> i think rod wheeler decided to go along with this. he had to make a conscious decision in the beginning that he was comfortab

we have no evidence rob wheeler was misquoted by zimmerman. e dispute between zimmerman and rod wheeler has nothing to do with race. but wheeler was hired to investigate seth rich's death. he said he challenges ask wheeler's allegations. >> this lawsuit is all about rod wheeler trying to get money because he messed up. i never talked to president trump in my life. howie: a white house spokesman told me a trump supporter asked for 10 minutes to catch up. they described the story in progress, and spicer took no action. >> it doesn't bother me the press secretary would take a meeting with somebody about a story. the president didn't have knowledge of this story. the white house didn't have any involvement in the story. howie: wheeler says he asked fox to remove the parts that he says were invented. it didn't stop wheeler from promoting the story on fox news. nobody looks good here. the courts will decide whether wheeler has a case. but one thing is clear. this compounds the tragedy for seth rich's family. is the press taking a fair approach on the

. >> with the totality of everything else i found in this case -- >> the plaintiff is rob wheeler whotrump supporter ed bertowski. also a fox commentator who paid for it on behalf of the victim's family. he met with white house officials to discuss the story. >> in this case it was a particularly ugly instance. >> reporter: wheeler filed the lawsuit this morning claiming fox had falsely contributed quotes about the investigation to him, quote, because that was the way the president wanted the article. bertowski denied the allegations, telling cnn the lawsuit is b.s. but wheeler provides as evidence a litany of text messages and e-mails exchanged with bertowski. >> you must get allegations of misinformed stories all the time. what you don't tend to get is a blow-by-blow story of what occurred. >> i want to note that we have the full attention of the white house on this, and tomorrow let's close this deal. >> reporter: this after allegedly sending a text to wheeler. the president just read the article. he wants the article out immediately. it's now all up to you. when asked about the ex

. >> how do you reconcile that with the rob wheeler before us tonight saying i never wanted anythingring the investigation, when i'm going through information and interviewing people, i get the information. this is important. i get the information about this federal investigator from who? melilla zimmerman and ed boutoski. and i asked is this guy credible. the response was yes. and real quickly here. after the story broke i immediately -- i didn't waste any time, challenged me lirks oorks a about the quote said and i asked her let me talk to the federal investigator to talk to him and get his information to the d.c. police and i was told i could not talk to this guy. >> i know the lawyer gets ignored in these interviews. not tonight. proof he was misquoted. you could look at that as a demonstration of a monexistent fact. but is there anything you can show that can demonstrate your client was misquoted? >> sure. aside from the fact that we have a 33-page complaint that is full of quotes from audio, from text messages, from emails, these aren't just allegations saying what happened. we

rob wheeler, the plaintiff in the case and his attorney.what are you claiming and when did this entire incident change for you because initially you were voluntarily involved? >> that's right. i was asked to get involved this conducting an investigation, a murder investigation of seth rich. that's why i got involved to try to find out who killed this guy. during the course of my investigation there was a lot of things that came up. there was a lot of suspicious information i was learning even the dnc being involved to some degree. i don't know. i decided to take all the information i got and give it to police department, like you should do in any case and go from there. half way through the investigation and up until the point in which this article was released by fox, there were these quotes in there from me saying i knew for a fact that seth rich had been in contact with wikileaks e-mailing them e-mail >> let's pause. fox news as the sourceinking the dnc staffer to this hacking. you're saying at time that was false. >> right. the reporter

rob wheeler, who brought this lawsuit says his former associate says the president was aware of thisagain, that's hearsay, and there really isn't solid proof that the president even knew about it. the only thing we do know about the white house is that rod wheeler and he had bu to you ski told sean spicer in a meeting in april that this story was coming. we don't know whether sean spicer went to the president and told him. sean spicer then in may denied knowing about the story after it was published. in fact, he did know about it because he was told about it in april. but the president's involvement, still unclear. >> and glen flush, that was just real wick quickly what you were trying to get for the bottom of yesterday in the briefing, right? >> that's right. so sarah -- yeah. it was a two-part question. did the president know about it and did the president influence the story. sarah unequivocally in the first answer answered no, the president didn't know about it. and she was broader in her response saying no one in the white house sought to influence it. but here is the question,

i did it because rob wheeler really wanted a job at the white house. sean spicer said, there's no discussion of jobs. >> they don't know the agenda for a lot of things over there take it as perhaps there is an involve. as wheeler alleges. in that text, invoice messages and other interactions and exchanges between ed, the investor and rod wheeler the investigator, he useds the white house and political importance to say, you have to deliver on the story i want done. what happens is, the fox news reporter puts two key quotations in the mouth of the investigator. >> according to wheeler. >> fox news doesn't dispute this. there is it no journalistic defense being offered. >> really? >> they but a lot of the onus on wheeler, fox retracted the story. they don't have any ground to stand on so far. >> fox news told you, there was no concrete evidence he was misquoted? >> right, rod wheeler claims he asked her to remove the quotes. she doesn't, and then in the material that's recording their exchanges. she said, this 1 what fox news told me to do, keep them in