Hunter Biden, the indicted son of President Joe Biden, is threatening Fox News with a defamation lawsuit unless the cable network bends to demands from his lawyers over unflattering content about his personal life and business dealings, including content from a laptop that he purportedly abandoned at a repair shop.
A letter sent last Tuesday warned of “imminent” litigation over an alleged “conspiracy and subsequent actions to defame Mr. Biden and paint him in a false light, the unlicensed commercial exploitation of his image, name, and likeness, and the unlawful publication of hacked intimate images of him,” according to NBC News.
Axios reported the attorneys requested hosts including Sean Hannity, Jesse Watters, and Maria Bartiromo preserve records, called for the removal of the Fox Nation mock trial for Hunter Biden, and an update on the indictment of a longtime FBI informant accused of fabricating a multi-million dollar bribery scheme involving the Bidens.
News reports about the letter on Monday relayed that Fox News had not responded despite a stated deadline for a response by Friday evening on April 26. However, there was no indication that Hunter Biden’s legal team had filed suit yet. Fox News issued a statement to reporters the following day.
“Hunter Biden’s lawyers have belatedly chosen to publicly attack Fox News’ constitutionally protected coverage regarding their client. Mr. Biden is a public figure who has been the subject of investigations by both the Department of Justice and Congress, has been indicted by two different US Attorney’s Offices in California and Delaware, and has admitted to multiple incidents of wrongdoing,” a spokesperson said. “Consistent with the First Amendment, Fox News has accurately covered these highly publicized events as well as the subsequent indictment of an FBI informant who was the source of certain claims made about Mr. Biden.”
Lawyers for Hunter Biden have initiated litigation against others, including a case against a former Trump White House aide over claims he violated state and federal law with the publication of photos and emails from the infamous laptop linked to the younger Biden. The defendant, Garrett Ziegler, asked a federal judge to dismiss the suit.
The Fox News lawsuit comes after the network agreed last year to pay nearly $800 million to settle a defamation case brought by Dominion Voting Systems stemming from the 2020 election. There is a $2.7 billion defamation lawsuit from voting technology company Smartmatic, which Fox News is fighting back against with counterclaims.
Hunter Biden is facing a pair of federal indictments. He has pleaded not guilty to gun and tax charges. Trials are set to begin later this year in June. The first son has also participated in a closed-door deposition from the House’s corruption-focused impeachment inquiry into President Biden.