Hunter Biden is suing the former chief legal officer of the Fox Corporation, Viet Dinh, and Fox News Media’s chief digital and marketing officer, Jason Klarman, for their roles in creating and airing a docuseries that featured sexually explicit photos of Biden and women believed to be prostitutes that were found on his infamous laptop. The lawsuit is a refiling of an older suit that Biden filed, then later withdrew, that makes claims against Fox News for what he calls  “politically motivated attacks against the President and his family.” The adding of Messrs. Dinh and Klarman to the list of defendants is the newest development. 

Biden originally filed the lawsuit earlier this year suing Fox News, the Fox Corporation, and 100 other “John and Jane Does” for airing the docuseries “in an effort to harass, annoy, alarm, and humiliate him, and tarnish his reputation.” He withdrew the suit in July, hours after his father ended his re-election bid. On Tuesday, he refiled the suit, naming Messrs. Dinh and Klarman.

The docuseries, titled “the Trial of Hunter Biden,” featured a mock trial presided over by television’s Judge Joe Brown, where prosecutors and defense attorneys played out what a criminal trial of Biden for corruption might look like. In reality, Biden has yet to be charged with corruption, although he’s believed to still be under investigation by Special Counsel David Weiss for possible violations of the Foreign Agent Registration Act.

The program included sexually explicit photos taken from the laptop that showed Biden and unidentified women, believed to be escorts and prostitutes, engaging in intimate behavior and using illegal drugs such as crack cocaine in what appear to be high end hotel rooms. Fox producers covered up the most obscene parts of the images. Biden has claimed the images were manipulated and inaccurate, though multiple, left-leaning news organizations have verified the contents of the laptop, which first came to the world’s attention four years ago this week.

Biden, in a separate lawsuit, has also sued John Paul Mac Isaac, the computer repairman who gave his abandoned laptop to Mayor Giuliani, who was then President Trump’s personal attorney, in 2020. Earlier this month, a Delaware judge threw out that suit, along with Mr. Mac Isaac’s countersuit. Biden has also sued a former Trump White House staffer who maintains a comprehensive, searchable database of the laptop’s contents, Garrett Ziegler. In June, a California judge denied Mr. Ziegler’s motion to dismiss the suit and said he must face Biden in court.

The legal complaint was filed at New York County’s supreme court on Tuesday. Biden’s attorneys did not reply to a request from the Sun asking why they have refiled the charges. Biden, who now works as an artist, has been experiencing serious financial problems for years and a financial settlement could potentially alleviate some of that pressure. And his father’s exit from the presidential race mitigates the harm from negative publicity over an ongoing lawsuit focusing on unsavory aspects of Biden’s history while addicted to drugs and alcohol.

Biden had initially filed his suit almost two years after “The Trial of Hunter Biden” was first made available on Fox News’ streaming platform, Fox Nation. Fox immediately took down the program, saying they were doing so out of  “an abundance of caution.”

At the time the series was available on Fox Nation, Mr. Dinh was serving as the powerful chief legal officer of Fox Inc., which includes the Fox broadcast network, Fox Sports, and Fox News. He departed that role under a cloud in 2023, after Fox settled a lawsuit brought by the Dominion voting machine company for almost $800 million dollars. Mr. Dinh was the architect of Fox’s aggressive legal defense, which ended in the largest settlement in libel history. He is being paid more than $20 million through 2025 to act as an outside advisor.

Biden writes that Mr. Dinh flouted privacy laws to allow the docuseries to be aired. Mr. Dinh “knew, or should have known, that the publication and dissemination of the Intimate Images was nonconsensual and without Mr. Biden’s consent,” Biden’s attorney writes in the updated legal filing. “He further knew or should have known that the publication and dissemination of the Intimate Images in ‘The Trial of Hunter Biden’ would violate the majority of states’ ‘revenge porn laws,’ including New York Civil Rights Law.”

“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 first son’s lawyers continued. 

Mr. Klarman has been added to the lawsuit for his role in producing, airing, and promoting the docuseries that Biden says was illegally manufactured. Mr. Klarman was the business executive overseeing  Fox Nation at the time “The Trial of Hunter Biden” appeared on the subscription-only streaming service. Like Mr. Dinh, Biden says Mr. Klarman “knew, or should have known, that the publication and dissemination of the Intimate Images was nonconsensual and without Mr. Biden’s consent.”

Biden is still  also suing 100 individuals listed as John and Jane Does in the lawsuit, who are described by Biden’s lawyers as “executives, officers, employees, agents, and representatives of Fox who perpetrated the wrongdoing alleged herein.”

In a statement provided to the New York Sun, Fox News calls Biden’s lawsuit “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 company says. “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.”

Biden listed violation of New York privacy laws, “intentional infliction of emotional distress,” and the profiting by Fox News off of his “intimate” photos as grounds for demanding a jury trial in New York. He is seeking monetary damages and a prohibition on the use of the photographs by Fox News. 

When he initially threatened to sue Fox in April, he wrote in a letter to the outlet that the docuseries had used “hacked, stolen, and/or manipulated digital material” for their production.

In their original lawsuit filed in June, Biden’s attorneys said that because Fox news used “actual emails” and “actual photographs” for “entertainment,” the news outlet is guilty of disseminating “highly damaging” information about Biden.

Biden was convicted of multiple felonies this past summer for lying about his drug use to buy a gun in 2018. He will be sentenced on November 13 and he could be sent to prison. Separately, Biden pleaded guilty last month to several counts of tax evasion, just as jury selection was about to begin for a trial on those charges. He will be sentenced in December, and could face a prison sentence for those charges as well.

President Biden has the power to pardon his son, since he’s been convicted on federal charges, but has said he will not do so.