Hunter Biden Sues Fox News for Sharing “Intimate Images”

Ryan J. Farrick — July 7, 2024

A re-stylized rendering of the Fox News logo. Image via Flickr/user:Johnny Silvercloud. (CCA-BY-2.0).

“Fox published and disseminated these Intimate Images to its vast audience of millions as part of an entertainment program in order to humiliate, harass, annoy and alarm Mr. Biden and to tarnish his reputation,” the lawsuit alleges.

Hunter Biden has filed a lawsuit against Fox News, claiming that the conservative media network violated New York law when it aired explicit images taken from his laptop.

According to The Associated Press, Biden filed his lawsuit on Sunday in a Manhattan-based state court. Biden’s claims center on a recent Fox Nation series, “The Trial of Hunter Biden.”

The series, which explores a range of hypothetical legal claims against the president’s son, included images of Biden nude and engaged in various sex acts.

Attorneys for Hunter Biden say that Fox News violated New York law by obtaining and disseminating intimate images without his consent.

“Fox published and disseminated these Intimate Images to its vast audience of millions as part of an entertainment program in order to humiliate, harass, annoy and alarm Mr. Biden and to tarnish his reputation,” the lawsuit alleges, emphasizing that “The Trial of Hunter Biden” is a stylized “mock trial” based on partly on criminal charges that Biden never faced.

“The entire miniseries,” Biden’s lawyers wrote, “is fictionalized and based on a nonexistent criminal case.”

A news camera. Image via Pixnio.com/user:Bicanski. (CCA-BY-0.0).

“Far from reporting on a newsworthy event, Fox sought to commercialize Mr. Biden’s personality through a form of treatment distinct from the disseminating of news or information,” it says. “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.”

Biden is seeking damages for the intentional infliction of “severe emotional distress, humiliation, mental anguish, as well as irreparable injury to his personal and professional reputation.”

Fox News has since condemned the complaint as “an entirely politically motivated lawsuit” that is “devoid of merit.” A spokesperson for the network noted that Biden’s attorneys had sent a removal request in April 2024, which resulted in the series’ removal from the Fox Nation service.

“The core complaint stems from a 2022 streaming program that Mr. Biden did not complaint about until sending a letter in late April 2024,” Fox told The Associated Press 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 subject of multiple investigations and is now a convicted felon,” Fox said. “Consistent with the First Amendment, Fox News has accurately covered the newsworthy events of Mr. Biden’s own making, and we look forward to vindicating our rights in court.”