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Hunter Biden sues Fox News over ‘mock trial’ miniseries
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Hunter Biden, son of US President Joe Biden, arrives at the J. Caleb Boggs Federal Building on June 6, 2024 in Wilmington, Delaware.
CNN —
Hunter Biden has sued Fox News and its parent company, accusing the right-wing network of defaming him and illegally publishing his explicit images without his consent in a 2022 miniseries about his legal troubles.
In the lawsuit, filed Sunday in New York state court, the president’s son accuses Fox News of unjust enrichment, intentionally inflicting emotional distress and violating New York civil rights laws. The process complies The threat of Hunter Biden he declared in April that he would take the network to court if it did not immediately issue retractions and corrections.
The miniseries, “The Trial of Hunter Biden,” was a six-part offering on the Fox Nation digital streaming network, and was also promoted on Fox News, the cable channel. She presented a dramatized “mock trial” about Hunter Biden’s overseas financial dealings that led in part to his federal tax indictment and that also fueled House Republicans’ struggles impeachment inquiry in your father.
Fox News took the miniseries off the air in late April, the day after Hunter Biden threatened legal action. But according to the lawsuit, promotional materials for the miniseries are still on some social media pages linked to Fox News, and episodes of the miniseries are still circulating “online and in the public domain.”
A Fox News spokesperson said the lawsuit was meritless and “entirely politically motivated,” and said the network looked forward to “vindicating our rights in court.”
“The primary complaint stems from a 2022 streaming program that Mr. Biden did not complain about until he sent a letter in late April 2024,” the spokesperson said in a statement. “The program was removed within days of the letter in an abundance of caution, but Hunter Biden is a public figure who has been the target of multiple investigations and is now a convicted felon. Consistent with the First Amendment, Fox News accurately covered newsworthy events of Mr. Biden’s own creation.”
The new lawsuit claims that Fox News “targeted Mr. (Hunter) Biden in an effort to harass, annoy, alarm, and humiliate him, and to tarnish his reputation.” President Joe Biden’s son is seeking an unspecified amount of punitive damages, as well as any profits Fox made from the miniseries and other remedies.
“The miniseries is fictional; it is not a news event. It was done for commercial and advertising purposes and merely exploits Mr. Biden’s name, likeness and likeness for Fox’s commercial benefit,” Hunter Biden’s lawyers wrote in the filing.
Hunter Biden’s team said in the lawsuit that, without his consent, Fox News “illegally published numerous intimate images (both still and video) of Mr. Biden depicting him nude, depicting an intimate part of him unclothed or exposed, as well as involved in sexual acts.” The right-wing network said these images originated with Hunter Biden’s consent. infamous laptop – data leaked by allies of former President Donald Trump in 2020.
The president’s son was convicted at trial last month on federal gun charges and faces a second trial this fall for alleged tax crimes. However, he has not been charged with the bribery and foreign lobbying allegations that have been at the center of Fox’s “mock trials” series.