Who was Seth Rich and how did he get involved in Fox News conspiracy theory?

Rod Wheeler, an occasional Fox News contributor, filed a federal lawsuit in U.S. District Court in New York City on Tuesday that accuses the network of working with the Trump administration to falsely attribute quotes to him in a now-retracted story about the unsolved slaying of a Democratic National Committee staffer named Seth Rich – all in a bid to change the national dialogue about Russia's alleged meddling in the presidential election.

Let's not kid each other: That's a lot to digest in one paragraph.  Let's rewind and unpack this.

He was a 27-year-old who grew up in Omaha, Neb., and had "straw-colored hair, American flag shirts and [a] goofy grin," according to the Washington Post. Rich was shot to death after he left a bar in Washington early on July 10, 2016.  He was working for the DNC, but he was considering accepting a position on Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign at the time of his death. No arrests have been made in the case, but police and the Rich family have said they believe it was part of a botched robbery.

On May 16, Fox News published a story by reporter Malia Zimmerman that claimed Rich had leaked thousands of DNC e-mails to WikiLeaks. This was an unexpected twist on the conclusion that had been reached months earlier by the CIA and other U.S. intelligence agencies: that Russian officials had obtained the emails by hacking the DNC's computer servers, and subsequently leaked them to WikiLeaks through a third party.

A federal investigation into Russia's efforts to meddle in the 2016 election – including possibly colluding with members of the Trump campaign – was very much a topic of national discussion when the Fox News story ran. A week earlier, on May 9, Trump had fired FBI Director James Comey. In the days that followed, the president reportedly told Russian diplomats that firing Comey had removed "great pressure," and then explained to NBC that he'd thought about how "this Russia thing with Trump and Russia is a made-up story" before making the decision.

The Russian Embassy in London took notice of the Fox News report.

In a word: No.

The network retracted the story on May 23, and posted the following:

Rod Wheeler is a former Washington homicide detective and a self-described private investigative consultant and crime analyst.  He was an occasional contributor to Fox News and was quoted in connection with the Seth Rich story.

According to Wheeler's defamation lawsuit, the Fox News report on Rich included entirely made-up quotes that were attributed to Wheeler, such as: "My investigation up to this point shows there was some degree of email exchange between Seth Rich and WikiLeaks," and "My investigation shows someone within the DC government, Democratic National Committee or Clinton team is blocking the murder investigation from going forward."

The quotes were catnip for conspiracy theorists, who suggested that Rich had been murdered – by Democratic operatives, maybe? – over the email leaks. But Wheeler alleges that they were crafted out of thin air to advance the story.

This is where Wheeler's lawsuit really gets interesting.

Two days before the story ran, Wheeler alleges that he received an alarming message from Ed Butowsky, a Fox News contributor whom he'd met in February, and who had previously offered to bankroll an investigation into Rich's murder:

The text message read: "Not to add any more pressure but the president just read the article. He wants the article out immediately.  It's now all up to you.  But don't feel the pressure."  According to the lawsuit, Butowsky wasn't referring to the network's president; he was talking about Trump, alleging that the president of the United States reviewed the story before it was published.

In case you're still a little confused, the lawsuit spells it out more clearly: "The motivation behind the article: Establish that Seth Rich provided WikiLeaks with the DNC emails to shift the blame from Russia and help put to bed speculation that President Trump colluded with Russia in an attempt to influence the outcome of the Presidential election."

Wheeler alleges that the network was in regular contact with Trump administration officials, including former White House spokesman Sean Spicer and Steve Bannon, Trump's chief strategist, in the weeks and months before the story was published.

On the morning Fox published its report, Wheeler claims Butowsky sent him a handful of text messages, including this reminder: "If you can, try to highlight this puts the Russian hacking story to rest."

Yeah.

In a statement to the website The Hill, Fox News roundly denies Wheeler's claims.

"The accusation that FoxNews.com published Malia Zimmerman's story to help detract from coverage of the Russia collusion issue is completely erroneous. The retraction of this story is still being investigated internally and we have no evidence that Rod Wheeler was misquoted by Zimmerman."

The White House had no immediate comment, according to the Associated Press.