Hunter Biden is demanding that Fox News remove from its platforms sexually explicit images that President Joe Biden’s son says are private, according to a letter obtained by CNN, as part of his strategy to publicly fight back against conservative media.
The letter sent by attorneys for Hunter Biden to Fox News and FOX Corp. alleges conspiracy to defame and unlawful publication of “hacked” images, seeking corrections and retractions on air and in online articles to claims that President Biden and his son engaged in a bribery scheme abroad.
Hunter Biden’s legal team has undertaken an aggressive legal and public relations strategy for several months. His lawyers have fired off letters demanding investigations into Hunter Biden’s opponents and filed a series of lawsuits against his detractors. Hunter Biden’s lawyers say they “anticipate” suing Fox but have not yet done so.
This stepped-up strategy by Hunter Biden to defend himself against the onslaught of attacks initially stoked anxiety among some of President Biden’s political advisers. But the president has publicly defended his son, who separately faces gun and tax charges in Delaware and California. Hunter Biden has pleaded not guilty to those criminal charges.
“For the last five years, Fox News has relentlessly attacked Hunter Biden and made him a caricature in order to boost ratings and for its financial gain,” Hunter Biden’s attorneys Mark Geragos, Bryan Freedman and Tina Glandian said in a statement.
The media outlet aired a mock trial of Hunter Biden on the streaming platform Fox Nation in 2022, focused on the unproven bribery allegations, and published “intimate images of Mr. Biden depicting him in the nude as well as engaged in sex acts,” according to the letter, which demands that Fox immediately remove the series from all streaming platforms.
“FOX knows that these private and confidential images were hacked, stolen, and/or manipulated digital material,” Hunter Biden’s attorneys wrote in the letter, which contained several of the explicit images, some of which were blurred.
Publishing these images, the attorneys said, violated “the majority of states’ laws against the nonconsensual disclosure of sexually explicit images and videos, sometimes referred to as ‘revenge porn’ laws.”
Hunter Biden’s attorneys also take issue with Fox News publishing several articles on the bribery allegations, citing an FBI informant who was recently indicted for allegedly lying to investigators about Hunter Biden and the bribery plot.
The informant, Alexander Smirnov, has pleaded not guilty to the charges and is set to face trial in December.
Attorneys for the president’s son allege that Fox News “initially remained silent” on news of Smirnov’s indictment “despite the fact that this now rendered the prior reporting on these allegations highly misleading.”
“Then, in a brazen show of no remorse, rather than walk back the story and correct the record, FOX double-downed 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 suggest an even deeper conspiracy,” the letter alleges.
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.”
“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 spokesperson said in the statement.
The letter from Hunter Biden’s legal team demands Fox News issue editor’s notes to online articles “informing readers of the indictment” and have several prominent Fox News hosts including Sean Hannity, Maria Bartiromo and Jesse Watters “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 central to the GOP’s impeachment inquiry into President Biden. CNN has reported that Republican lawmakers don’t have the votes to impeach him.
This story has been updated with additional developments.