Lawyers for Hunter Biden plan to sue Fox News “imminently” on defamation grounds, according to a letter sent to the network.
The Tuesday letter, obtained by NBC News, which served as a litigation notice for Fox News, alleges its “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.”
Biden has reportedly hired attorney Mark Geragos and his firm to represent him in his lawsuit against Fox. Geragos has represented many celebrity clients, such as singer Michael Jackson, former NFL player Colin Kaepernick, actor Jussie Smollett, and musician Chris Brown.
“For the last five years, Fox News has relentlessly attacked Hunter Biden and made him a caricature in order to boost ratings and for its financial gain,” Geragos said in a statement. “The recent indictment of FBI informant Smirnov has exposed the conspiracy of disinformation that has been fueled by Fox, enabled by their paid agents and monetized by the Fox enterprise. We plan on holding them accountable.”
In a statement to the Washington Examiner, Fox News responded to the imminent lawsuit.
“Hunter Biden’s lawyers have belatedly chosen to publicly attack Fox News’ constitutionally protected coverage regarding their client,” Fox said. “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. 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.”
The lawsuit is spurred on by numerous mentions of President Joe Biden’s son on the network at least 13,440 times since the beginning of 2023, per Media Matters.
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The younger Biden’s legal team reportedly believes the number of mentions across a significant period of time makes the threat as significant as the nearly $800 million judgment in the Dominion Voting Systems case, in which the network settled with the company to dismiss defamation claims.
The letter specifically cited Fox’s advancement of bribery allegations by FBI informant Alexander Smirnov, who was indicted in February on charges of making false statements about the Bidens to the FBI. “Smirnov and the post-indictment revelations basically closed the loop on the conspiracy,” Geragos told NBC News.
