Brother of Seth Rich Works for Government Contractor That Provides Cyber Defense
Cassandra Fairbanks
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Aaron Rich, who had reportedly been blocking his family’s private investigator from looking into whether or not his brother Seth was a WikiLeaks source, works for an influential defense contractor that provides cyber security.
According to a source close to the Rich family, Aaron works for Northrup Grumman, which was named as the fifth-largest defense contractor in the world in 2015. The source did not provide what his specific role is at the company.
“It’s not just hacking and defending, there’s a lot more to it,” a cyber software engineer at Northrup Grumman says in a video on the company’s website.
The company faced criticism in 2015 over their “Washington influence” flying under the radar.
The Sunlight Foundation reported:
“Northrop Grumman, a major defense contractor that employs more than 65,000 people, relied on the U.S. government for 85 percent of its sales in the past three years, according to its latest annual report. It’s no surprise, then, that the corporations and its subsidiaries invest heavily in lobbying the federal government. In 2014, the company disclosed spending $10.2 million targeting an extensive range of legislation, including the National Defense Authorization Act and implementation of the Affordable Care Act, according to lobbying reports analyzed by the Center for Responsive Politics.”
The report added that in addition to 40 registered lobbyists, the company also employs a “bevy of government marketing and sales professionals.”
“A Sunlight Foundation review of contributors to Northrop Grumman’s employee PAC from 2013 to March of 2015 finds 62 contributors whose job titles indicate interaction with government officials, either in a marketing or government affairs role. Of the individuals in that list, which is embedded below, 39 of those employees had experience in the federal government, nearly all of them in the military or intelligence spheres. Only 13 of them are registered as lobbyists,” the report details.
As we previously reported, Aaron Rich was actively attempting to shut down anyone looking into the WikiLeaks connection according to Rod Wheeler, who was brought on as a private investigator in his brother’s murder case.
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.”
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.
Big League Politics has also released an audio recording of journalist Seymour Hersh stating that Seth Rich was in fact WikiLeaks’ source.
“All I know is that he offered a sample, an extensive sample, I’m sure dozens of emails, and said ‘I want money.’ Later, WikiLeaks did get the password, he had a DropBox, a protected DropBox,” he said. They got access to the DropBox.”
Hersh also states that Rich had concerns about something happening to him, “the word was passed, according to the NSA report, he also shared this DropBox with a couple of friends, so that ‘if anything happens to me it’s not going to solve your problems,’” he added. “WikiLeaks got access before he was killed.”
Attempts to contact Aaron Rich for comment have been unsuccessful. Northrump Grumman did not return a request for comment as of press time.
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