Dotcom's Seth Rich claim earns him a chance to appear on Sean Hannity's show

Kim Dotcom has managed to catch the eye of Fox News' Sean Hannity – one of Donald Trump's favourite broadcasters – with his claims over the unsolved murder of Democratic National Committee IT staffer Seth Rich.

Mr Rich was shot in the back near his home in Washington DC last year.

DC police have yet to solve his murder. His family believe it was a robbery gone wrong.

Since his murder, there have been conspiracy theories that Mr Rich was killed because he was the source of DNC emails supplied to Wikileaks, not Russian operatives as FBI investigations have suggested. The proposition is that he was killed in a cover-up.

Last Monday, the rumour mill reignited after Rod Wheeler, a Washington private investigator who was hired by the Rich family to look into the death of their son, suggested in an interview with a Fox station in Washington DC  there was “tangible evidence” the slain DNC operative had communicated with WikiLeaks before his death.

However, on Tuesday afternoon, the PI seemed to 'walk back' his story. CNN reported the detective saying he had “no evidence” that Mr Rich had contacted WikiLeaks and that he had “only learned about the possible existence of such evidence” through a reporter at Fox News.

Then, in a third interview later the same day, Mr Wheeler said he could not say definitively either way if the evidence existed. He had heard about it secondhand.

In the middle of it all, the Washington DC Metropolitan Police Department issued a statement saying “the assertions put forward by Mr Wheeler [on Monday] are unfounded.”

Enter Kim Dotcom, who this weekend tweeted "If Congress includes #SethRich case into their Russia probe, I'll give written testimony with evidence that Seth Rich was @Wikileaks source" and "I knew Seth Rich. I know he was the @Wikileaks source. I was involved."

To back up his claims, Dotcom linked to a May 2015 story in which he predicted Julian Assange would cause "roadblocks" for Hillary Clinton. Assuming it's true, Mr Dotcom has a line of communication with Wikileaks, does he have proof Mr Rich was the source of the DNC emails?

Surprisingly, Mr Hannity jumped into Twitter to ask Mr Dotcom just that, tweeting the accused German pirate " You are the evidence? Can you explain that in more detail?"

Mr Dotcom came back with the rather unpromising "I am the evidence."

He then said he would consult his lawyers on Monday before making a statement on Tuesday.

Longtime Dotcom followers won't be holding their breath; his much-hyped "Big Reveal" rally on the eve of the 2014 election turned out to be a damp squib.

Nonetheless, Mr Hannity appeared to be still interested. He tweeted from his verified account: "Stay tuned. Public invitation Kim Dotcom to be a guest on radio and TV. #GameChanger  Buckle up destroy Trump media. Sheep that u all are!!!"

It could be that Mr Hannity or his producers decide Mr Dotcom's "evidence" is too lame for primetime consumption.

But if they decide it's got enough of a whiff of truthiness to run with, it could turn him into a conservative media darling – and that wouldn't harm his cause one bit.

On February 17, the High Court in Auckland upheld a District Court decision to extradite Kim Dotcom and his co-accused, citing an answerable case for fraud. Dotcom and co are now headed for the Court of Appeal, with a date yet to be set for the hearing. Any interview with Mr Hannity will be via satellite.