US Politics
Hunter Biden quietly drops ‘revenge porn’ lawsuit against Fox over airing of explicit images
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Hunter Biden has dropped his lawsuit against Fox News over the broadcasting of sexually explicit images as part of a 2022 series entitled The Trial of Hunter Biden.
Biden initially threatened to sue Fox in April last year, leading to the streaming platform Fox Nation removing the program. Biden subsequently sued Fox in July 2024, but dropped the lawsuit after just a few weeks. He launched yet another lawsuit in October, which he dropped late last week.
“We are pleased to move on now that Hunter Biden has finally voluntarily withdrawn this meritless case, which proved to be nothing more than a politically motivated stunt,” Fox told media outlets in a statement.
Biden’s initial lawsuit argued that Fox had crossed the bounds of New York’s Civil Rights Law Sec 52-b, which handles what’s known as “revenge porn.” In late October 2022, the show hit the airwaves after being promoted as showing “how a possible Hunter Biden trial might look.”
While Biden’s attorneys haven’t stated why they dismissed the suit, they recently failed in an attempt to move it to New York state court from federal court. In Friday’s court filing, his attorneys said he was dropping the case “with prejudice” meaning that he can’t file it another time.
Biden’s July filing stated, “Far from reporting on a newsworthy event, Fox sought to commercialize Mr. Biden’s personality through a form of treatment distinct from the dissemination of news or information. Indeed, the entire miniseries is fictionalized and based on a nonexistent criminal case.”
“This entirely politically motivated lawsuit is devoid of merit,” Fox told Mediaite at the time. “The core complaint stems from a 2022 streaming program that Mr. Biden did not complain about until sending a letter in late April 2024.”
“The program was removed within days of the letter, in an abundance of caution, but Hunter Biden is a public figure who has been the subject of multiple investigations and is now a convicted felon,” the network added. “Consistent with the First Amendment, FOX News has accurately covered the newsworthy events of Mr. Biden’s own making, and we look forward to vindicating our rights in court.”
The Fox program investigated Biden’s business deals in Ukraine and China during his father’s time as vice president. It also reviewed his struggles with alcoholism and drug abuse. The show included intimate images of Biden with a number of women, with the images seemingly coming from his laptop that he dropped off at a Delaware repair shop in April 2019.
Last year, Biden was convicted on federal gun charges and pleaded guilty to tax violations connected to his business deals abroad. It was, however, never alleged that he attempted to unlawfully lobby the government on behalf of foreign clients, as the Fox series suggested.
Before Biden was sentenced, his father, then-President Joe Biden, issued a full pardon even after repeatedly saying he wouldn’t do so.