Hunter Biden Lawyer Tells CNN Fox News Case Is ‘Much More Than Just A Conspiracy To Defame’

Hunter Biden attorney Tina Glandian, told CNN their case against Fox News “is not your typical defamation case” and is “so much more than just a conspiracy to defame.”

Biden’s lawyers  sent a letter to Fox News and Fox Corp, demanding and threatening legal action over the network’s coverage of material from a laptop that they say featured “hacked, stolen, and/or manipulated digital material.”

On Monday night’s edition of CNN NewsNight, anchor Abby Phillip hosted Glandian to lay out the case they’re pursuing, which the attorney says “eliminates a lot of the classic defenses something like a media organization would have against defamation claims”:

PHILLIP: Hunter Biden’s legal team is telling Fox to take down or stamp editor’s notes on a raft of stories that relied on the allegations of a now indicted FBI informant. They’re saying it’s defamation and that Fox knows it. They also want the network to remove a fictionalized series about Hunter Biden that has featured sexually explicit images that Biden says were private, according to a letter obtained by CNN. Now, it’s a very public step that accuses the network of breaking state laws against revenge porn.

Joining me now is Tina Glandian. She is an attorney at Geragos and Geragos, whom Mr. Biden is now hired to handle this Fox case. Defamation, when it comes to a news organization, is typically really difficult in our court system. And for good reason, why do you think this one will be successful?

TINA GLANDIAN: So, this is not your typical defamation case. This is actually, if you read the letter carefully, it’s more of a conspiracy to defame and paint in a false light. And why that’s significant is when it’s a conspiracy case, that actually eliminates a lot of the classic defenses something like a media organization would have against defamation claims.

So, that’s what definitely sets us apart from other cases. And this is obviously so much more than just a conspiracy to defame. As you just mentioned, there’s the fictionalized docu-series that Fox Nation has created and produced just for entertainment value. There’s absolutely no newsworthy purpose to this.

PHILLIP: I wondered about that, though. I mean, if it is fictionalized, we all agree. You agree. They agree. And they have all the disclaimers saying, this is not real. This is essentially made up, I mean, because some of the things are literally made up. Isn’t it just art? You know, I put that in quotes, but essentially.

GLANDIAN: No, because – so, you have pure fact, which would be protected. And you also have pure fiction that might be protected. But this is a very bizarre kind of marriage of the two. So, it’s basically blending in fact and fiction in a way that doesn’t allow viewers to decipher what really is fact and what’s fiction.

So, if you watch the docu-series, you see some real life characters from kind of this, whether you want to call it the laptop saga, but these events that are actually occurring. And they play themselves, you know, they act as themselves as witnesses in the docu-series.

So, even though there’s a disclaimer at the outset, you then see these real individuals portraying themselves. You see actual images of both Hunter Biden, the President, and other individuals that are involved with them. You see actual emails.

And so, they present a lot of factual information, but they distort it and they don’t give the appropriate context. And then they have, you know, fictionalized dialogue surrounding it. So, for an average viewer, it’s really impossible to know what is fact and what’s fiction. And that is very harmful because then, the portrayal is perceived to be true, even though it’s not.

Fox News issued a statement dismissing the letter and defending their coverage.

Watch above via CNN NewsNight.

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