The whole story got so bungled by Wheeler, and then there were reliable reports that the Rich family had a minder. I have heard that Seth's brother Aaron was also involved with the data download. Well, imagine that poor family--grieving over a murdered son and swept up in a political maelstrom whilst supporting Bernie. Hersh sees it as career suicide--and is furious Butowsky leaked the call. There is the appearance of malfeasance (Butowsky is linked to Steve Bannon and this call came out when Spicer was press secretary and those were tumultuous days) and I believe Hersh would have gone on the record if he hadn't of been tricked (by the leaking of the call)--and there may also have been other factors--such as his opinion of Assange--whom he avoids like the plague because he doesn't want his reputation to get co-mingled with Assange's. Hersh is an old school reporter--maybe the last of them. Here's a heavy.com piece on Butowsky if you are interested in some background on Ed: https://heavy.com/news/2017/08/ed-butowsky-seth-rich-donald-trump-bannon-sean-spicer-bio-lawsuit-dallas/