Hunter Biden calls on Fox News to take down 'intimate' photos from their media outlets.
Lawyers for Hunter Biden have accused Fox News and FOX Corp. of conspiring to defame and publishing unlawful images, demanding corrections and retractions of claims that President Biden and his son were involved in a bribery scheme overseas.
For months, Hunter Biden's legal team has implemented a stern legal and PR strategy. They've demanded investigations into his opponents and filed a series of lawsuits against them. While they hint at potentially suing Fox, they haven't done so yet.
This escalated approach by Hunter Biden to protect himself from the barrage of attacks initially worried some of President Biden's political advisors. However, the president has publicly backed his son, who faces gun and tax charges in Delaware and California. Hunter Biden has pleaded not guilty to these criminal charges.
Hunter Biden's lawyers, Mark Geragos, Bryan Freedman, and Tina Glandian, stated in a statement, "For the last five years, Fox News has unrelentingly attacked Hunter Biden, attempting to turn him into a caricature to increase ratings and boost revenues."
In 2022, Fox News aired a mock trial of Hunter Biden on its streaming platform Fox Nation, focusing on unproven bribery accusations, and published "private and confidential images of Mr. Biden depicting him in the nude as well as engaged in sex acts," according to the letter, demanding Fox remove the series from all streaming platforms.
The letter alleges, "FOX knows that these private and confidential images were hacked, stolen, and/or manipulated digital material." It further claims that publishing these images violates "the majority of states' laws against the nonconsensual disclosure of sexually explicit images and videos, often referred to as 'revenge porn' laws."
Hunter Biden's attorneys also dispute Fox News publishing several articles on the bribery allegations, citing an FBI informant who was indicted for allegedly lying to investigators about Hunter Biden and the bribery plot.
The informant, Alexander Smirnov, pleaded not guilty to the charges and is scheduled for trial in December.
The attorneys assert, "FOX initially remained silent on news of Smirnov's indictment, despite the fact that this now rendered the previous reporting on these allegations highly misleading."
"Then, in a brazen show of no remorse, rather than admit their mistake, correct the record, and walk back the story, FOX doubled down on the debunked bribery allegation and used Smirnov's indictment to claim this is an 'intimidation tactic' aimed at silencing 'whistleblowers,' to blame the FBI for its credulity, and to imply a more elaborate conspiracy."
In response to the lawsuit threats, a Fox News Media spokesperson defended the network's "constitutionally protected coverage" of Hunter Biden, a "public figure who has been the subject of investigations by both the Department of Justice and Congress."
The spokesperson stated, "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 letter from Hunter Biden's legal team calls for Fox News to add editor's notes to online articles "informing readers of Smirnov's indictment." They also request several prominent Fox News hosts, such as Sean Hannity, Maria Bartiromo, and Jesse Watters, "to inform their viewers on air that they have been sharing a debunked allegation from a source who has been federally indicted."
The bribery allegations have been a central issue in the GOP's impeachment inquiry against President Biden. CNN has reported that Republican lawmakers lack the votes to impeach him.
This story has been updated with the latest developments.
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Source: edition.cnn.com
