Hunter Biden lawyers plan to sue Fox News over alleged efforts to defame the first son

Attorneys for First Son Hunter Biden are preparing to sue Fox News for alleged efforts to "defame" Biden and for allegedly attempting to exploit his name and image, the attorneys said in a letter.

Biden has frequently made headlines over the past year as he has faced multiple criminal investigations and served as a major witness in a House Judiciary investigation into his father President Joe Biden. However, Fox News has dedicated many hours to criticizing the younger Biden, and a review of network transcripts by Media Matters cites at least 13,440 mentions of Hunter Biden since January 2023, according to NBC News.

A letter on the upcoming litigation was sent to Fox News Channel and Fox News Digital on April 23, and focuses on the network's airing of bribery allegations that originated from FBI informant Alexander Smirnov, who was indicted by special counsel David Weiss in February for allegedly making false statements to the FBI. The letter claims that the network knew at the time that it was not verified, yet still reported it as "highly credible."

“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 attorney Mark Geragos said in a statement to NewsNation. "The recent indictment of FBI informant Smirnov has exposed the conspiracy of disinformation that has been fueled by Fox, enabled by their paid agents and monetized by the Fox enterprise. We plan on holding them accountable.”

Fox News defended their coverage of the first son in a statement on Tuesday, claiming the coverage was allowed due to Biden's status as a public figure.

“Hunter Biden’s lawyers have belatedly chosen to publicly attack Fox News’ constitutionally protected coverage regarding their client," a spokesperson for Fox News Media said in the statement shared with Just the News. "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.”

The letter also claimed that the network aired "intimate images" that belonged to Hunter Biden, which were allegedly "stolen, hacked, and/or manipulated" and violate their client's civil rights and copyright law. The first son's attorneys also requested Fox News removes all six-parts of a “mock trial” titled “The Trial of Hunter Biden."

The new litigation follows a successful lawsuit against Fox by Dominion Voting Systems, which the network settled for nearly $800 million last year. The Dominion suit was related to the network's coverage of election fraud allegations during the 2020 election.