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Hunter Biden named Fox Corporation’s former chief legal officer, Viet Dinh, in a lawsuit President Biden’s son filed in the New York Supreme Court on October 15 charging the company with violating the state’s revenge porn law.
As the head of the legal operation for one of the leading media conglomerates in the world at the time the company aired a fictional documentary about Biden, Dinh knew the company’s use of intimate images of Biden without his consent violated the law, the lawsuit says. And if he didn’t know that, he should have.
“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,” the lawsuit says.
The lawsuit isn’t new. Biden filed an earlier version of it in July, charging the company with violating Section 52-b of New York civil rights law prohibiting the unauthorized use of intimate images. It also charged the company with the intentional infliction of emotional distress and unjust enrichment. Biden withdrew the lawsuit without prejudice a month later.
In filing a new version of the lawsuit this week, Biden is seeking a trial over the same three causes of action. But he also personally names Dinh and one other executive, Jason Klarman, former president of Fox Nation, to the complaint for their roles in allowing Fox to air the fictional documentary.
Dinh is retired from Fox but remains under contract as an advisor; Klarman has been given a new role, chief digital and marketing officer at Fox News Media.
Commercial exploitation
“The Trial of Hunter Biden” is the show at the center of the lawsuit. It uses a mix of fictional and non-fictional material to depict what a trial might look like if Biden were to be charged with violations of the Foreign Agents Registration Act and bribery.
Although the premise is fictional, the show draws on email and other non-fictional material that has been compiled on Biden, including interviews of people who’ve become part of the news stories looking at Biden’s conduct while his father was vice president.
“The mock trial features individuals acting as themselves as witnesses testifying on behalf of the prosecution,” the complaint says.
These individuals include John Paul Mac Isaac, the Delaware shop owner that claims Hunter Biden left his laptop at his shop, and Miranda Devine, a New York Post columnist who authored the book “Laptop from Hell: Hunter Biden, Big Tech, and the Dirty Secrets the President Tried to Hide.”
By mixing nonfiction and fictional material together in the service of a fictional narrative, the show blurs the line between what’s real and what’s not in a way that’s damaging to Biden, the complaint says.
“The series intentionally manipulates the facts, distorts the truth, narrates happenings out of context, and invents dialogue intended to entertain,” the complaint says. “Thus, the viewer of the series cannot decipher what is fact and what is fiction.”
The show aired on Fox’s streaming company, Fox Nation, from late 2022 to mid-2024, when the company removed the show at Biden’s request. Promotional reels and clips, along with some downloaded copies, remain available.
CLO role
The complaint points to Dinh’s compensation as evidence that Fox relied on him to keep the company out of trouble and yet he failed to do that in this case. He earned almost $50 million between the end of 2020 and the end of 2023, along with an additional $23 million when he left the company and another $5 million as a fee for his advisory role, according to the complaint, which drew on the company’s public filings.
The big pay package and the “robust” legal department Dinh oversaw are intended to keep the company in compliance with the laws affecting its operations, and yet Dinh, among the other defendants, allowed the show to air while knowing the use of the images violated the law.
“Defendants knew that the majority of states had in effect laws against the nonconsensual disclosure of sexually explicit images and videos (also known as ‘revenge porn’ laws),” the complaint said. “Defendants knew that their use of the Intimate Images in ‘The Trial of Hunter Biden’ would violate New York state’s revenge porn laws including New York Civil Rights Law Section 52-b and Penal Law Section 245.15 (making the unlawful dissemination or publication of an Intimate Image a class A misdemeanor).”
The complaint is seeking compensatory and punitive damages, disgorgement of show profits, attorneys fees and pre-judgment interest, and a permanent injunction against publication, along with destruction, of all intimate images of Biden in the company’s control.
In an emailed statement to Legal Dive, a Fox News Media spokesperson called the lawsuit without merit.
“Hunter Biden’s now second lawsuit against FOX News shopped to a different court is once again devoid of any merit,” the statement says. “The core complaint stems from a 2022 streaming program that Mr. Biden didnot take issue with until sending a letter in late April 2024. The program was removed within days of that letter, in an abundance of caution, but Mr. 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 his own making, and we look forward to vindicating our rights in court.”
