Hunter Biden was forced to drop his case against Fox News, alleging that the network violated the law by displaying sexually graphic photographs of him in a six-part “mock trial” series titled “The Trial of Hunter Biden.”
This is the second time Hunter has abandoned his case against Fox News. He initially threatened to sue the network in April 2024, prompting Fox Nation to take the miniseries off its streaming site.
Hunter Biden then sued Fox in July, but abandoned the action a few weeks later. In October, he filed another complaint, which he officially dismissed on Friday.
“We are pleased to move on now that Hunter Biden has finally voluntarily withdrawn this meritless case, which proved to be nothing more than a politically motivated stunt,” Fox News told Mediaite in a statement.
Hunter Biden’s original lawsuit claimed Fox News violated New York Civil Rights Law Sec 52-b, which addresses so-called “revenge porn.”
The show debuted in late October 2022 and was billed as a glimpse at “how a possible Hunter Biden trial might look.”
Hunter’s attorneys did not explain why they dismissed the lawsuit, which they are unable to re-file – but they did recently lose a request to relocate it from federal court to New York state.
“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,” Hunter Biden alleged in his court filing last July.
Fox News reacted to the filing in a statement to Mediaite at the time, saying, “This entirely politically motivated lawsuit is devoid of merit. 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. 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.”
Fox also explained to Mediaite at the time why it removed the “mock trial” series from its streamer: “This program was produced in and has been available since 2022. We are reviewing the concerns that have just been raised and — out of an abundance of caution in the interim — have taken it down.”
Hunter Biden has already had a rough year since his father, former President Joe Biden, left office.
