In a phone call provided to Big League Politics by a source who wishes to remain anonymous at this time, private investigator Rod Wheeler explains what happened with the Fox News coverage of Seth Rich — and how brother Aaron Rich was actively attempting to shut down anyone looking into the WikiLeaks connection.

On August 1, Wheeler filed a lawsuit in New York City alleging White House involvement in pushing the story. But in this recording, he explains that he acted on his own in contacting Fox News reporters — and exactly how that all went down. The White House being involved is not mentioned once.

“The story has already blown up, this will only give credence to the story. If Fox News channel broke it, it would seem like conspiracy theories,” Wheeler says the Fox 5 DC reporter texted him. “So she decided that she was going to run with this story, in her mind, so it didn’t seem like a conspiracy theory from Fox News.”

Wheeler said that brother Aaron Rich tried to block Wheeler from looking at Seth’s computer, even though there could be evidence on it. “He said no, he said I have his computer, meaning him,” Wheeler said. “I said, well can I look at it?…He said, what are you looking for? I said anything that could indicate if Seth was having problems with someone. He said no, I already checked it. Don’t worry about it.”

Wheeler said that Seth’s girlfriend told him that Aaron Rich had possession of Seth’s cell phones, but Aaron denied it and said “we’re not going to worry about the cell phones.”

Aaron also blocked Wheeler from finding out about who was at a party Seth attended the night of the murder.

“All I want you to do is work on the botched robbery theory and that’s it,” Aaron told Wheeler, according to Wheeler’s claim on the audio. Wheeler said that Seth’s father Joel “does not appear to have any hidden agenda.”

Rich was shot in the back in the early morning hours of July 10, 2016, near his home while he was on the phone with his girlfriend — 12 days before the publication of the DNC emails by WikiLeaks. The police initially ruled that it was a botched robbery — but his wallet, watch, and necklace were still on his person when he was discovered by police.

Though Assange has infamously expressed interest in Rich, he has always maintained that WikiLeaks will never name a source. WikiLeaks has offered a $20,000 reward for Rich’s murderer however, and has retweeted articles that asserted he was their source without providing any additional comment.