Disclaimer: The following blog analyzes the alleged role of Ellen Ratner in the Seth Rich story. Analysis is based on various YouTube videos, news reports, and social media posts. I have no inside knowledge on whether Ellen actually said the things she is reported to have said.
Ellen Ratner is the sister of the late Michael Ratner. Michael was an attorney for Julian Assange of Wikileaks.
Ellen met with Julian Assange the Saturday before the 2016 General Election. In her 6 hour meeting, according to Ed Butowsky, Assange told her that Seth Rich was his source. Ellen was given instructions to find Seth’s parents and relay a message to them. Ellen talks about the meeting in the following YouTube video. https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://m.youtube.com/watch%3Fv%3D0M3Z4eE6cJA&ved=2ahUKEwik-qv9rYPwAhVSmK0KHSYVAPYQjjgwAHoECAMQAg&usg=AOvVaw16ChhM2nbI6UBC1PfWpl2B
What’s interesting about this meeting is that it occurred during the time frame when the intelligence agencies were spying on the Trump administration and other prominent supporters of his via the FOIA process and through unmasking.
In addition, there were also reports that the 5 Eyes intelligence services were also monitoring American citizens. It would not be a stretch to assume Ellen’s London meeting with Assange and her subsequent communications with Ed and others in her social and media circles were being closely monitored.
After all, she had nearly a full day’s access to the Wikileaks founder who was supposedly working with Vladimir Putin to undermine the United States.
If the FBI ever fully releases the documents they have on the Seth Rich case, expect to see many Ellen Ratner related items.
Upon returning to the US, if Ellen had simply contacted the parents of Seth and shared the information that Julian had for them one wonders how different the events of the past 4 plus years would have played out.
There likely would not have been a Sy Hersh secret recording or any of the many lawsuits filed. Ed Butowsky would be running his business. Malia Zimmerman would still be working at Fox, etc.
It would have been up to the parents to decide whether to make a public statement or share it with law enforcement. Ellen may have worried about either option since the parents would have been asked how they learned about their sons involvement.
One final under reported piece of information that Ed claims he learned from Ellen was the password to the DNC server. Why would Assange tell that to Ellen if she was only supposed to relay a message to the parents? The identity of the server password indicates that Ellen was possibly informed about many details of the DNC operation.
Sadly, it appears Julian was betrayed by someone he trusted. Instead of contacting the parents, Ellen turned to a friend and business partner, Ed Butowsky. According to Ed, Ellen also spoke to others at Fox News. Malia Zimmerman said Bill Shine are two names mentioned by Ed. It’s likely, the gossip spread quickly at Fox News.
Less than two months after Ellen’s meeting, Sean Hannity (who has talked about his being monitored and unmasked) travels to London for a meeting with Julian. Megyn Kelly also interviewed Julian around this time. Lou Dobbs and other Fox News anchors also discuss whether Seth was the Wikileaks source.
Malia Zimmerman writes an article about Seth Rich a few months later.
Fox News is eventually sued. Recently, Fox News settled the lawsuit against the wishes of attorneys representing Ed Butowsky. Shortly after the settlement, a federal judge in a FOIA case ordered the FBI to release over 20K documents related to Seth Rich and the contents of his laptop. All of which they denied having in their possession for over 4 years.
Evidence suggesting Ellen had information about Seth Rich includes the following:
1) Ed Butowsky has emails and a secretly recorded phone call that appears to corroborate Ed’s version of events. She talks about having to get permission from a family member who is representing Assange before speaking out about the case.
2) Ed purposely refused to name Ellen as a source for several years. He only revealed her name in 2019 after Michael Isikof wrote about her even though Ed told Isikof it was off the record.
3) Ellen does admit to meeting with Julian Assange in the YouTube video.
4) Ellen and Ed were friends and business partners. Why would Ed make up a story about Seth Rich on his own? Ed had a successful business and a great reputation before agreeing to help Ellen contact the parents of Seth. Since that decision, he has been sued, nearly died on an operating table, had death threats against his son, and lost many of his clients.
5) Fox News began aggressively pursuing the Seth Rich story aftet Ellen returned from meeting with Assange.
6) Ellen was deposed in one of Ed’s lawsuits and was served a subpoena. She eventually gave a deposition for the attorneys suing Ed Allegedly, she denied any knowledge about Seth.
A few odd things about her deposition. She only had to answer written questions from Aaron Rich’s attorneys and she wasn’t cross examined by Ed’s representatives because Ed’s attorney and/or Ed didn’t reply in a required 2 week window.
When Ed’s team later tried to subpoena her again, Ellen successfully ran out the clock. The case was settled before she was required to testify.
7) She was also sued by Ed along with Michael Isikof in a defamation lawsuit in July 2020 but surprisingly it was dropped within a few days of the suit. A Twitter post from Ed’s attorney said she was no longer being sued.
Here is a link to that lawsuit which was dismissed in October 2020. https://t.co/izBNuRv5lD?amp=1
When I commented about why Ellen was dropped from the lawsuit, I received the following reply on Twitter… “Please stop asking me these kinds of questions on Twitter. If I and my clients are ready to make something public, we will make it public”.
After receiving that response I became hopeful that maybe Ellen was now cooperating with Durham, especially with her not being cross examined in the lawsuit mentioned above. Based on the Fox News dismissal, and the fact attorney’s representing Ed have basically given up on Durham, I now have less hope.
Ellen could have saved Fox News millions of dollars and she could have saved her former business partner and friend from being viciously attacked by dozens of media outlets if she just had issued a statement when her name was brought up as being a source for all the Seth Rich stories.
If Ed and anyone else had misunderstood her as she now claims, she should have spoken up.
The two catalysts for linking Seth Rich to Wikileaks were the Dutch interview with Julian Assange and the actions of Ed Butowsky via Ellen.
On a side note, it doesn’t appear that Ellen was interviewed by Mueller investigators. This is odd since she was one of the few people to meet with Assange in 2016.
Here is a link from Ty Clevenger talking about all the Ellen Ratner info mentioned above. https://lawflog.com/?p=2210&page=2
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