Left: Viet Dinh, former Chief Legal and Policy Officer of Fox Corporation (Harvard Law School/YouTube). Right: Hunter Biden, the son President Joe Biden, is seen during an event to celebrate the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic teams on the South Lawn of the White House in late September (Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call via AP Images).
Months after he suddenly dropped a "revenge porn" lawsuit against Fox News over the pulled 2022 "mock trial" Fox Nation miniseries "The Trial of Hunter Biden," President Joe Biden's son has, as it seemed would happen, refiled the lawsuit in New York and added a well-known defendant: Fox Corporation's former chief legal and policy officer.
The lawsuit largely repeats unjust enrichment and intentional infliction of emotional distress allegations, but this time Biden assigns blame to high-profile attorney Viet Dinh and Jason Klarman, Fox Nation's former president and Fox News Media's current chief digital and marketing officer.
Biden, who faced a real trial and was convicted of three gun-related federal felonies in June, has claimed that the "mock trial" series was aired to "harass, annoy, alarm, and humiliate him, and tarnish his reputation" — including by "publishing and disseminating […] Intimate Images" that Fox allegedly knew were "hacked, stolen, and/or manipulated digital material which were intended to remain private and confidential, but which had been unlawfully procured and disseminated without Mr. Biden's consent."
The new complaint filed by attorney Tina Glandian alleges that Dinh — who exited his top role at the end of 2023 and reportedly raked in $23 million in the aftermath of Fox's $787 million settlement to resolve Dominion Voting Systems' 2020 election-related defamation lawsuit — was paid handsomely to oversee "all legal, compliance, and regulatory matters for Fox," and so, by virtue of that job, Dinh "knew or should have known that the publication and dissemination of the Intimate Images" at issue would "violate the majority of states' 'revenge porn laws,' including New York Civil Rights Law section 52-b."
"On information and belief, Mr. Dinh consciously disregarded the clear prohibition against the publication and dissemination of the nonconsensual Intimate Images and advised Fox to publish and disseminate the Intimate Images in 'The Trial of Hunter Biden,'" the suit said.
The suit similarly alleges that Klarman "knew, or should have known," and was "made aware" of anti-revenge porn legal issues but that he "decided to publish and disseminate the Intimate Images anyway."
As in the original complaint, Biden claimed that some 1 to 100 John and Jane Does — "executives, officers, employees, agents, and representatives of Fox" — played a role in "perpetrat[ing] the wrongdoing" and damaged him by directing or participating in the "mock trial" series.
Biden, seeking a jury trial, is hoping that Fox will be forced to hand over any profits from the series through disgorgement.
Law&Crime sought comment from Fox News, a Fox Corporation spokesperson, and Biden's attorney on the lawsuit.
In response, Fox News Media said the second Biden suit is as meritless as the first.
"Hunter Biden's now second lawsuit against FOX News is once again devoid of any 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 that 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 statement said. "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."
Read the complaint here.
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