Hunter Biden may have gotten a sweeping pardon from his dad on his way out of office, but his legal troubles might not be fully in the rearview mirror.
First Lady Melania Trump is threatening to sue the former first son over what she calls “false, defamatory, disparaging, and inflammatory statements” he made about her. Biden, for his part, does not seem phased by the potential litigation, saying “f-ck that” when asked about it.
But should he be concerned? On Thursday’s show, Megyn was joined by Stu Burguiere, host of BlazeTV’s Stu Does America, to discuss Biden’s remarks and whether Trump will follow through with the lawsuit.
Put on Notice
On August 6, the first lady’s attorney, Alejandro Brito, sent Biden and his lawyer, Abbe Lowell, a letter threatening legal action if he did not retract the claim he made during an interview on Channel 5 with Andrew Callaghan that she was introduced to her husband, President Donald Trump, by convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
In the letter, which was obtained by Fox News Digital, Brito called for Biden to “immediately retract the false, defamatory, disparaging and inflammatory statements made about Mrs. Trump” and said failure to comply would result in a $1 billion lawsuit to “recover the overwhelming financial and reputational harm that you have caused her to suffer.”
The threat stems from comments Biden made to Callaghan in a video titled “Hunter Biden Returns” released earlier this month. Biden claimed “the connections are, like, so wide and deep” between the president and Epstein that “Epstein introduced Melania to Trump.” The former first son claimed “Jeffrey Epstein introduced Melania, and that’s how Melania and the first lady and the president met.”
Brito identified the “source” for Biden’s false statements as “serial fabulist Michael Wolff, whose lies were published by The Daily Beast in the article titled ‘Melania Trump ‘very involved’ in Epstein Scandal: Author.’”
The Daily Beast has since retracted the piece by the controversial writer – which detailed Wolff’s allegations that Melania Trump was introduced to her husband Donald Trump via a modeling agent connected to Epstein – after hearing from the first lady’s lawyers.
The article appears to have been deleted from the website altogether, but not before The Daily Beast issued an editor’s note that read: “After this story was published, The Beast received a letter from First Lady Melania Trump’s attorney challenging the headline and framing of the article. After reviewing the matter, the Beast has taken down the article and apologizes for any confusion or misunderstanding.”
Similarly, James Carville has apologized to Trump for repeating the same claim. He began the August 7 episode of his Politics War Room podcast with a legal note on the matter.
“In last week’s podcast episode, we spoke with Judd Legum,” Carville said. “After the episode, we received a letter from Melania Trump’s lawyer. He took issue with our title of one of those YouTube videos from that episode and a couple of comments I made about the first lady. We took a look at what they complained about, and we took down the video and edited out those comments from the episode. I also take back these statements and apologize.”
Hunter Responds
The letter from Brito gave Biden until August 7 to comply with their demands for a retraction of the video and an apology for the “false, defamatory, disparaging, misleading and inflammatory statements about Mrs. Trump.”
But the first son did not comply. Instead, he returned to Channel 5 in a video posted August 14 to defiantly respond to the legal threat. When Callaghan asked Biden if he wanted to apologize to the first lady, he made it clear he would not. “F-ck that,” Biden said. “That’s not gonna happen.”
“I don’t think that these threats of a lawsuit add up to anything other than a distraction,” he continued. “I also think they’re bullies, and they think that a billion dollars is going to scare me. The fact of the matter is that… if they want to sit down for a deposition and clarify the nature of the relationship between Jeffrey Epstein, if the president and the first lady want to do that, and all of the known associates around them at the time that they met, I’m more than happy to provide them the platform to be able to do it.”
What Comes Next?
While Megyn quipped that Biden has “all the confidence of man who has been repeatedly protected by law enforcement his entire life,” she said the ball is back in the first lady’s court. “It is very, very hard for a public figure to recover for defamation… [and] if they sue for defamation, [they] have to be subjected to a deposition themselves,” she explained of the civil process. “She will be cross-examined by Hunter Biden’s lawyers, but she may be prepared to do all of that just to make a point that you can’t lie about her with impunity.”
Burguiere said he would love to see it – especially given the fact that The Daily Beast, no friend of Trump or Republicans, complied with the first lady’s request. “The fact that they retracted and apologized for something is maybe the biggest part of the story,” he noted. “I don’t know that they’ve ever cared about a journalistic standard of their entire life, so they must be scared of that lawsuit.”
Biden, meanwhile, is “an entitled person,” in Burguiere’s view, who got his first taste of internet stardom after his profanity-laced Channel 5 interviews and appears to enjoy the attention.
“The one thing [Biden] has been praised for over the past 10 years has been this interview with… Callahan. He was praised by… the people that he wants to be praised by,” he said. “I really do think this type of reaction has incentivized him to go even farther… It is the Jasmine Crockett theory: The dumber and louder you are, the more attention that you get. And I think Hunter is falling into this.”
But that doesn’t mean it won’t cost him. “When Donald Trump is on the other side of that, and his wife, who he is going to defend, and a billion dollar lawsuit, I think this is a terrible mistake from a guy who has made many of them,” Burguiere added.
In Megyn’s view, a defamation case against Biden would amount to a “political battle” as much as a legal one, and time will tell if Trump wants to get involved with that. “You certainly can’t bring Jeffrey Epstein anywhere close to somebody like that and not expect them to rattle your cage a bit,” she concluded. “So, we shall see.”
You can check out Megyn’s full interview with Burguiere by tuning in to episode 1,128 on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you like to listen. And don’t forget that you can catch The Megyn Kelly Show live on SiriusXM’s Triumph (channel 111) weekdays from 12pm to 2pm ET.