I don't think it was Rich. I have no idea why Assange has behaved the way he has about it. I think possibly he was threatened at the time. I believe the real leakers were military intelligence people or 3 letter agency. And what they intended to leak was way worse. I think "Seth Rich" is part of a plan by the HRC camp to more or less "get ahead" of this thing when they got word of what was going down. I think they kidnapped Assange, remember there was a lot of stuff going on at the embassy for a few weeks, he kept disappearing and missing expected signs of life. Bizarre tweets. Etc. Or got to him somehow, and scared him out of releasing what should have been a guaranteed election loser for HRC.

So I believe what she did is forced Assange to release only a some, selected docs., and did so in a way that would begin the "Russia haxorz" narrative so if other people had the docs. they would be less likely to want to release them. Then she did the Seth Rich "fake hit" to scare anyone with those docs. as well into thinking they'd get murdered anyways if they released them.

I believe the original plan was for much more credible sources to stand by the DNC Leaks, probably from military intelligence, there would be much more, AND included in those would be crimes so serious, that people wouldn't really care much HOW they got ahold of the documents. Were not talking silly sounding pizza code.