Former Marine Arrested: Tried to Kill Backer of Seth Rich Murder Investigation
by C. Mitchell Shaw
TheNewAmerican.com
Thursday, 22 March 2018
A former Marine, Kevin Doherty, was charged Monday with Use of a Firearm in the Commission of a Felony and two counts of Malicious Wounding in an attack on a Republican lobbyist who had been investigating the murder of DNC staffer Seth Rich. That near-fatal attack happened on March 13 in Arlington, Virginia.
The lobbyist, Jack Burkman, was meeting a person he believed was an FBI whistleblower in another investigation into the bureau’s handling of both the Clinton e-mail and Russian collusion investigations. He was shot twice, run over by an SUV, and left for dead last Tuesday. Doherty, who Burkman says nearly killed him, was one of the people Burkman had hired to investigate Rich’s murder.
After Seth Rich was shot dead in Washington, D.C. on July 8, 2016 — just as the news of WikiLeaks publishing a trove of damning DNC e-mails was rocking the establishment — many began connecting the dots between the leak of those e-mails and the murder.
Police said Rich’s murder was the result of a robbery in an area of the city with escalating levels of crime, including armed robbery. But when Rich was found shot twice in the back at 4:20 a.m., nothing was missing: He still had his watch, phone, and wallet. His father said, “If it was a robbery — it failed because he still has his watch, he still has his money — he still has his credit cards, still had his phone so it was a wasted effort except we lost a life.”
In late 2016, as the evidence continued to point in the direction of a political conspiracy involving killing Rich because he was WikiLeaks’ source, Burkman offered his services to the Rich family for free. He also offered a $130,000 reward for information leading to Rich’s killer.
One of the investigators he apparently hired was Rod Wheeler, a private investigator and former D.C. police homicide detective who — citing an unnamed source “inside the police department” — claimed that Rich’s laptop showed that he had been in communication with WikiLeaks.
Another investigator hired by Burkman was Doherty, the man who would try to kill him. As the Washington Post reported:
Doherty briefly worked for Burkman’s Profiling Project, which was formed to build a psychological portrait of Rich’s likely killer. While police have concluded Rich was likely shot during a random robbery, many conservatives have claimed he was killed as part of a political conspiracy. Burkman offered a six-figure reward for information on the shooting.
In July, Burkman fired Doherty and sent him a cease-and-desist letter. And while Burkman thought that was the end of it, Doherty didn’t. “He became somewhat angry because he thought the Profiling Project belonged to him,” Burkman told the Post, adding, “I just figured the matter was closed. But what happened is, I guess, he was simmering and simmering and simmering.”
On March 13, that “simmering” boiled over and Doherty set Burkman up for murder by reaching out to him and pretending to be an FBI whistleblower. When Burkman showed up at a Rosslyn Marriott hotel’s parking garage to pick up a package of papers related to his investigation of the FBI, Doherty tried to kill him. He was told to find the papers under a traffic cone and when he bent to look under the cone, he was shot twice in the backside and legs. As he tried to run away, Doherty ran over him with an SUV. When Doherty saw Burkman was still alive, Doherty backed up and tried again, but missed the second time before speeding away. Burkman told the Post, “It looked like he was coming to kill me.”
The Arlington Police Department issued a press release after Monday’s arrest. That release says Doherty was charged with Use of a Firearm in the Commission of a Felony and two counts of Malicious Wounding and is being held in the Arlington County Detention Facility without bond. The New American reached out to the detective assigned to the case, as well as the department’s public information officer, to ask why Doherty is not being charged with attempted murder. As of this writing, we have not received a response.
The Rest…HERE
