Hunter Biden’s legal team asked Fox News last week to remove “hacked” and “intimate” images from its news site or risk a lawsuit.
Although Hunter claims the images were “hacked,” the Justice Department confirmed in a January that the contents on his laptop matched what authorities obtained via a search warrant of Hunter’s iCloud.
The DOJ also stated that Hunter left the laptop at a computer store for repair before it was turned over to the FBI. “The chain of custody of that laptop has been well established,” the New York Post’s Miranda Devine reported.
“FOX knows that these private and confidential images were hacked, stolen, and/or manipulated digital material,” Hunter’s attorneys wrote in a letter.
In addition to threatening a lawsuit, Hunter’s legal team requested network hosts Sean Hannity, Jesse Waters, and Maria Bartiromo to preserve documentation, Axios reported:
- The lawyers also demanded that Fox News take down their special, “The Trial of Hunter Biden” — a six-part mock trial focused on his foreign business dealings.
- “While routinely defaming and disparaging Mr. Biden, FOX has simultaneously sought to profit by the unlawful exploitation of Mr. Biden’s image, name, and likeness for commercial purposes and reprehensible dissemination of salacious photographs depicting Mr. Biden,” wrote lawyer Tina Glandian, a partner at Geragos & Geragos.
- She also asked that all FoxNews.com articles be updated with an editor’s note.
In a statement, Fox News swatted away the demand, defending their reporting as “constitutionally protected coverage” of a public figure:
STATEMENT FROM FOX NEWS MEDIA
Hunter Biden’s lawyers have belatedly chosen to publicly attack Fox News’ constitutionally protected coverage regarding their client. Mr. Biden is a public figure who has been the subject of investigations by both the Department of Justice and Congress, has been indicted by two different US Attorney’s Offices in California and Delaware, and has admitted to multiple incidents of wrongdoing. 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.
Hunter Biden is facing multiple tax and gun-related indictments, along with a House impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden. Republican lawmakers allege he potentially engaged in sex trafficking and FARA violations.
Wendell Husebo is a political reporter with Breitbart News and a former GOP War Room Analyst. He is the author of Politics of Slave Morality. Follow Wendell on “X” @WendellHusebø or on Truth Social @WendellHusebo.