The defendants in the defamation suit by former Fox News contributor Rod Wheeler are dividing their efforts to stop the suit, according to filings this week in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.

In Wheeler v. Twenty-First Century Fox, 17-cv-05807, Wheeler accused Fox News and its parent company, one of its California-based producers, Malia Zimmerman and Fox Business commentator Ed Butowsky of defamation per se. He alleges that quotes in a May 16 article that perpetuated a conspiracy theory that former Democratic National Committee staffer Seth Rich was murdered for leaking DNC emails to WikiLeaks were wrongly attributed to him.

The story, written by Zimmerman, included quotes Wheeler claims to never have made, but were included at the behest of Butowsky, who was looking to deflect attention from the ongoing investigations into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential elections, the complaint alleges.