Hunter Biden’s lawyers are gearing up to take legal action against Fox News. A letter, finalized April 23, tipped off Fox News Channel and Fox News Digital of the imminent litigation, alleging the network of painting Hunter Biden inaccurately and unjustly profiting from his image and personal information. Renowned attorney Mark Geragos, along with his team, is spearheading the lawsuit on Mr. Biden’s behalf.
The aforementioned letter is actually the second one delivered to Fox News within the last month. The previous letter was hand-delivered to the counsel of Fox a fortnight ago. The network requested additional time to put together a response, according to reliable sources. The latest letter, delivered on April 23, contained the deadline of Friday, April 26, for Fox to respond, as per Geragos.
Interestingly, this legal development surfaced nearly a year after Fox News decided to pay a hefty sum approximating $800 million to settle a defamation lawsuit with Dominion Voting Systems. This was following the network’s damaging and baseless allegations about election fraud in the 2020 presidential election.
Furthering this narrative, Fox News also finalized a $12 million settlement with an ex-employee claiming she was forced to offer misleading information regarding the Dominion lawsuit. In addition to this ongoing litigation saga, Fox News is also grappling with a $2.7 billion lawsuit commandeered by Smartmatic, another enterprise dealing in voting systems. Similar claims have been made against company directors by shareholders for the unchecked broadcast of these baseless allegations during Fox’s 2020 election coverage.
In its recent financial disclosures, Fox has indicated its intent to challenge these lawsuits, while also acknowledging the possibility of a drastic negative impact on the business and its financial prospects. Concurrently, the idea of legal action against Fox News has been under consideration by Hunter Biden’s legal advisors for over a year now.
This idea was reportedly inspired by Dominion’s lawsuit victory and the ongoing lawsuit from Smartmatic. The urgency for this lawsuit amplfied with the revelation that the bribery allegations aired by Fox were sourced from FBI informant Alexander Smirnov. Smirnov was later indicted by the special counsel in February.
In Mark Geragos’s words, ‘Fox News has, over the past five years, continuously targeted Hunter Biden, reducing his image to almost a caricature in order to fill their rating quotas and to profit. The recent indictment of the FBI informant, Smirnov, has laid bare the engine of disinformation that Fox has been feeding, with the help of their paid representatives. This disinformation has been monetized by Fox. We intend to hold them accountable.’
Hunter Biden has been in Fox News’s crosshairs for quite some time now. According to a review conducted by Media Matters, his name appears in a whopping 13,440 Fox News reports since 2023. Biden’s legal advisors are of the belief that the sheer volume and duration of these mentions warrants a lawsuit comparable, if not superior, to the Dominion lawsuit.
Geragos’s letter explicitly calls out Fox’s promotion of bribery claims made by Smirnov, the disgraced FBI informant later federally indicted for falsifying statements about the Bidens to the FBI. Geragos stated, ‘Smirnov and his subsequent indictment revelations essentially sealed the narrative on this conspiracy.’
The letter claims that Fox News was suspiciously zealous when it alleged the bribery claims to be ‘highly credible’, despite them lacking verification. It demands public corrections and retractions by several names on the Fox roster, including Sean Hannity, Jesse Watters, and Maria Bartiromo. The hosts should notify their viewership about the baselessness of an indicted source’s past allegations.
Geragos’s letter also chastises Fox for airing ‘intimate images’ purportedly belonging to Hunter Biden that his legal team argues were either ‘hacked, stolen, or manipulated’. This, they claim, is a straightforward infringement of Biden’s civil rights and constitutes an act of copyright violation.
The letter principally focuses on a six-part series called ‘The Trial of Hunter Biden’, which aired back in October 2021. The series mockingly depicted what a court proceeding might look like if Biden ever faced charges of FARA or bribery – something he’s never been criminally charged with.
The letter asserts that while the series uses some factual information, it employs deliberate manipulation of facts, contextual distortion, and the invention of dialogues designed to entertain the audience. Consequently, it becomes enormously difficult for the viewer to distinguish fact from fiction. Geragos’s team demand the prompt removal of the series across all streaming platforms.
This unexpected push for litigation comes as Hunter Biden gears up for a summer full of court proceedings. He is to stand trial for the gun charges in Delaware which commences June 3. Following this, his tax evasion case is scheduled for a courtroom showdown in August.
This broadside legal defense against Fox News is an emerging narrative in an already complex legal landscape. If these allegations hold any weight, the ramifications could be significant not only for Fox News but also for other media outlets who engage in biased and misleading coverage.
