Hunter Biden and his attorneys have sent a letter making several demands of Fox News, including one that threatens litigation if the network does not remove content from its website that includes sexually explicit images of the president’s son.
The letter also demands that Fox News issue a retraction or correction to news coverage about allegations that the Biden family was bribed by a Ukrainian oligarch. Much of that coverage was based on information from Alexander Smirnov, an FBI informant who said he had ties to Russian intelligence and has since been charged with lying about the matter by the Justice Department.
Hunter Biden with his father at this year’s White House Easter Egg Roll. Demetrius Freeman/The Washington Post
Much of the letter focuses on a six-part fictional series called “The Trial of Hunter Biden,” which was produced by the Fox Nation streaming service and used actors to imagine what a courtroom case against the president’s son might look like. Hunter Biden’s attorneys state that while the series uses some real information – including emails, as well as images that Biden says are his – they create an unfair and false impression.
The letter, which was obtained by The Washington Post, was sent April 23 and demanded that Fox remove the material by April 26. Fox has not responded to the letter, according to representatives for Biden, and did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
“While using certain true information, the series intentionally manipulates the facts, distorts the truth, narrates happenings out of context, and invents dialogue intended to entertain,” says the 14-page letter, signed by Tina Glandian of Geragos & Geragos. “Thus, the viewer of the series cannot decipher what is fact and what is fiction, which is highly damaging to Mr. Biden.”
Glandian also says the images belong to Biden and are being used without his permission. The letter cites laws against revenge porn in demanding that Fox remove the content.
“In addition to the unlawful commercial exploitation of Mr. Biden’s image, name, and likeness, ‘The Trial of Hunter Biden’ also unlawfully published and continues to publish intimate images of Mr. Biden depicting him in the nude as well as engaged in sex acts in violation of the majority of states’ laws against the nonconsensual disclosure of sexually explicit images and videos, sometimes referred to as ‘revenge porn’ laws,” the letter states.
The photos and emails are among the material that emerged from a laptop that Biden purportedly dropped off at a repair shop in Wilmington, Del., in 2019 and never retrieved. Biden has never conceded that he dropped off the laptop – saying his memory of that period is not clear because of a serious drug addiction at the time – and has maintained that the material may have been hacked or stolen.
“By unlawfully publishing images of Mr. Biden depicting an unclothed or exposed intimate part of him and depicting him engaging in sexual conduct in order to harass, annoy, and alarm him, FOX has violated N.Y. Civil Rights section 52-b and Mr. Biden is entitled to not only compensatory and punitive damages and his attorney’s fees, but he is also entitled to injunctive relief, as demanded herein,” Glandian wrote in the letter to Fox.
Glandian also argued that because the series is presented as entertainment, the network should not benefit from the legal protections usually enjoyed by news outlets.
“The miniseries is fictionalized; it is not a news event,” the letter says. “It was made for the purpose of trade and advertising, and merely exploits Mr. Biden’s name, image, and likeness for FOX’s commercial benefit. Thus, FOX is not protected by the newsworthiness exception to the right of privacy/publicity statutes.”
The letter is part of an aggressive strategy that Hunter Biden and his camp have adopted in advance of two criminal trials that he faces, potentially as early as June, as well his father’s reelection campaign. Hunter Biden faces federal charges related to taxes and gun possession.
In September, Hunter Biden sued former Donald Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani and Giuliani’s former lawyer, Bob Costello, charging that they misused his personal computer data. About the same time, the president’s son sued the IRS for allegedly violating his privacy rights in the course of its own investigation.
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