Hunter Biden is suing former Overstock CEO Patrick Byrne for defamation, accusing the former retail industry executive of falsely claiming that he sought a bribe from Iran.
The lawsuit, filed Wednesday in federal court in the Central District of California, comes after Biden, the son of President Joe Biden, in September sued Rudy Giuliani and the IRS, with the former complaint alleging that Giuliani hacked an external hard drive associated with Biden's laptop and the latter alleging that the tax agency violated his privacy.
In his latest lawsuit, Biden claims Byrne made false statements in June when he claimed Biden had contacted the Iranian government and offered to have his father "unfreeze" $8 billion in Iranian funds in exchange for an $800 million bribe. The complaint claims Byrne reposted his allegations in October on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, to his roughly 290,000 followers.
"These claims are complete nonsense," the suit alleges. "To falsely accuse [Hunter Biden] of engaging in these criminal acts is not only reckless and baseless but utterly outrageous and despicable, and it constitutes defamation per se."
The complaint alleges that Byrne "has been told that his allegations are false, that they are causing serious harm to [Biden] and that they should be retracted immediately. Rather than retract, however, Byrne has doubled down."
The lawsuit seeks general and punitive damages, as well as for Byrne to cover Biden's attorney's fees and costs.
Byrne...
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