Politics

Hunter Biden Sues Fox News Over Miniseries

JUL 1 2024·Updated JUL 3 2024

Story

Image credit: Anna Moneymaker/Staff/Getty Images News via Getty Images North

The Facts

Hunter Biden, the son of US Pres. Joe Biden, is suing Fox News over its 2022 miniseries called “The Trial of Hunter Biden,” which portrayed “how a possible Hunter Biden trial might look.”
ABC News
The lawsuit — filed in the Supreme Court of New York on Monday — accuses Fox of targeting Hunter “in an effort to harass, annoy, alarm, and humiliate him, and tarnish his reputation,” saying the series “sought to commercialize Mr. Biden’s personality.”
The Hill
By disseminating intimate pictures and video of Biden, Fox is accused of violating New York’s revenge porn laws and causing the plaintiff “severe emotional distress, humiliation, and mental anguish.” The six-part series ran from 2022 to April 2024 before it was taken down.
Variety
Despite arguing that it's protected by the First Amendment, Fox says it removed the series from its streaming platform, Fox Nation, "in an abundance of caution" after Hunter sent a complaint letter in April.
Forbes
The fictionalized trials centered on Biden’s potential violation of the Foreign Agents Registration Act and alleged bribery, two topics that have been heavily discussed by Republicans who are investigating the Bidens’ foreign business dealings.
Forbes
While acknowledging the portrayal of some true information, the lawsuit claims the series "intentionally manipulates the facts" and "distorts the truth" and published stolen photos for entertainment purposes.
CNBC

Sources Split

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The Spin

Democratic narrative

Hunter Biden is right to sue Fox for its defamatory series that unlawfully published intimate images of him. The right-wing media and the Republican Party have spent the last five years pushing conspiracy theories about Pres. Biden and his son, yet they haven’t made any progress in finding evidence suggesting any form of inappropriate behavior.

Rolling Stone

Republican narrative

Hunter Biden’s lawsuit won't hold up, and even his attorneys acknowledge that much of Fox’s series contains true information. The entire suit revolves around images that were left on Biden’s abandoned laptop, meaning they weren’t stolen or hacked material. Fox even took down the miniseries despite it being legal under the First Amendment.

The Gateway Pundit