Fox News Takes Down Hunter Biden ‘Mock Trial’ Special After Lawsuit Threat From President’s Son
AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana
Hunter Biden’s legal team warned Monday that a lawsuit against Fox News was imminent unless the network removed what they called illicit and defamatory material. Fox hit back hard with a statement of its own Tuesday morning, but also took down content from its streaming service related to Hunter Biden.
One program cited by Biden’s team as being particularly defamatory, a mock trial that was available to watch on Fox Nation, has been removed out of an “abundance of caution.”
Fox News issued a strong statement in their own defense early on Tuesday, saying “Hunter Biden’s lawyers have belatedly chosen to publicly attack Fox News’ constitutionally protected coverage regarding their client,” and “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.”
But despite Fox digging in their heels, The Trial of Hunter Biden, a six-part mock trial series focused on the legal troubles of President Joe Biden’s son was “quietly” removed from Fox Nation. The Daily Beast first reported:
Besides quietly taking down The Trial of Hunter Biden from its streamer, the network also deleted a promotional video promising Fox News viewers an “inside look” at the “mock trial,” which was presided over by former reality-TV star Judge Joe Brown.
The scrubbing of the series, which debuted in October 2022, directly complies with the demand from Biden’s legal team– powerhouse celebrity law firm Geragos & Geragos — to delete the content immediately.
Mediaite reached out to Fox to ask about the program’s removal, and they provided a statement:
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.
It also appears that the trailer has been removed from YouTube. In a letter obtained by CNN and reported on Monday, Biden’s lawyers alleged that the series used “intimate images of Mr. Biden depicting him in the nude as well as engaged in sex acts” adding “FOX knows that these private and confidential images were hacked, stolen, and/or manipulated digital material.” The letter cited “revenge porn” laws and demanded the immediate removal of the series.
