U.S. District Judge George Daniels of the Southern District of New York succinctly put an end to a dramatic tangential episode in the ongoing lawsuit against Fox News and two people connected to a now-retracted story about the murder of former Democratic National Committee employee Seth Rich.

In June, Daniels received a letter from attorneys at Wigdor LLP. A few weeks before, the firm had sought to be removed from the defamation suit, which it had brought on behalf of former Fox contributor Rod Wheeler. After being severed from the client on whose behalf the suit was initiated, the firm’s namesake, Douglas Wigdor, allegedly began receiving calls from Ed Butowsky, one of the defendants in the defamation suit.