Hunter Biden is suing Fox News over a fictional mock trial series, which included intimate images and an alleged distortion of truth that the lawsuit argues is “damaging” to President Joe Biden’s son.
The suit, filed Sunday in New York state Supreme Court and obtained by TheWrap, claims that “The Trial of Hunter Biden” — which first came out in 2022 and has since been removed from the platform — “intentionally manipulates the facts, distorts the truth, narrates happenings out of context and invents dialogue intended to entertain.”
Biden is suing for infliction of emotional distress and for any profits made from the miniseries due to unjust enrichment. His team also accused the network of participating in “revenge porn” in their filing.
While the series stated the web show did not reflect a “real proceeding” — with its opening statement clarifying “Hunter Biden has not been implicated in or charged in any crimes arising from his alleged activities, alleged activities” — the suit claims viewers were unable to “decipher what is fact and what is fiction.”
Fox News subsequently called the suit “entirely politically motivated” and “devoid of merit” in a Monday statement to TheWrap, highlighting the program’s removal.
“The core complaint stems from a 2022 streaming program that Mr. Biden did not complain about until sending a letter in late April 2024,” a Fox News spokesperson told TheWrap. “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. 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.”
In the series, Biden is on trial for whether he violated the Foreign Agents Registration Act (“FARA”) and whether he committed bribery, which the suit notes Biden “has not been implicated in or charged in any crimes arising from his activities, alleged activities.”
Additionally, the suit claims the series “unlawfully publishes numerous intimate images,” which depict Biden both in the nude and involved in sex acts. “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 Hill was first to report the news.
