Hunter Biden has responded to a threatened defamation lawsuit from Rudy Giuliani by publicly daring the former New York mayor to go ahead with it – while reopening Giuliani’s controversial dealings with figures later sanctioned by Donald Trump’s own administration over Russian influence operations.
Giuliani threatened legal action following Hunter Biden’s recent appearance on Tucker Carlson’s podcast, claiming both Biden and Carlson had defamed him during their discussion of the origins and distribution of material associated with Hunter Biden’s laptop.
Speaking on Newsmax, Giuliani said Hunter Biden had “personally defamed” him and accused Carlson of effectively suggesting that Giuliani and Donald Trump had acted as agents for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
No lawsuit appears to have been filed at the time of writing.
Hunter Biden has now responded publicly – and rather than backing away from the dispute, he has invited Giuliani to take him to court.
“Please, please sue me. Discovery will be a joy for everyone.”
What was actually said in the Tucker Carlson interview?
One important distinction is that the specific claim involving Israelis connected to Benjamin Netanyahu was introduced by Tucker Carlson, not Hunter Biden.
Carlson said during the interview that he had been approached by Israelis connected to Netanyahu who were “shopping” material relating to Hunter Biden’s laptop to him while he was at Fox News.
Biden then discussed what he described as different groups or “silos” involved in circulating material attributed to the laptop, referring to an Israeli or “Netanyahu” side, a Russian-Ukrainian side and US political figures.
Although Biden did mention Rudy Giuliani by name elsewhere during the interview, he did not accuse Giuliani of being an Israeli agent or an agent for Netanyahu.
That makes Biden’s later claim that Giuliani had threatened to sue him over an interview in which he “never said his name” too broad if applied to the entire interview. The narrower point, however, is stronger: the specific Netanyahu-related claim at the centre of Giuliani’s complaint came from Carlson rather than Biden.
Biden turns the threat back on Giuliani
In his response, Biden joked that he wanted to “apologise” to Giuliani and promised that, going forward, he would make sure to name him directly.
He then did exactly that, accusing Giuliani of working with people and intermediaries who were later sanctioned by the United States over Russian influence operations.
Trump administration sanctioned Ukrainian figure Giuliani met
One of the most significant names Biden cited was Ukrainian politician Andrii Derkach.
Giuliani met Derkach during a December 2019 visit to Kyiv while seeking information concerning Joe and Hunter Biden.
In September 2020, Donald Trump’s own Treasury Department sanctioned Derkach, describing him as an “active Russian agent for over a decade” who maintained close connections with Russian intelligence services.
Treasury said Derkach had conducted a covert influence campaign designed to spread false or unsubstantiated narratives concerning US officials ahead of the 2020 presidential election.
More sanctions followed
In January 2021, while Trump was still president and Steven Mnuchin remained Treasury Secretary, the department sanctioned another seven individuals and four organisations belonging to what it called a Russia-linked foreign influence network associated with Derkach.
Those sanctioned included former Ukrainian prosecutor Kostiantyn Kulyk, former diplomat Andriy Telizhenko and Ukrainian politician Oleksandr Dubinsky – all three of whom Hunter Biden specifically named in his response to Giuliani.
Treasury said Kulyk had formed an alliance with Derkach to spread false accusations of international corruption. It said Telizhenko had helped arrange meetings between Derkach and Americans in order to propagate corruption allegations, while Dubinsky participated alongside Derkach in promoting allegations aimed at US political candidates and their families.
The distinction matters. Hunter Biden described the men collectively as Russian agents and proxies. The US government was more precise: it explicitly described Derkach as a Russian agent, while describing the wider group as part of a Russia-linked foreign influence network supporting his activities.
Giuliani’s Ukraine information raised intelligence concerns
Hunter Biden also referred to warnings inside the Trump administration about Giuliani’s activities.
US intelligence officials reportedly became concerned that Russian intelligence was using people Giuliani encountered in Ukraine to feed information into American politics.
Then-national security adviser Robert O’Brien reportedly warned Trump that information Giuliani brought back from Ukraine should be treated with extreme caution because of the possibility it had been contaminated by Russian disinformation.
Giuliani has previously maintained that he was unaware Derkach was acting as a Russian agent and has denied knowingly participating in any Russian influence operation.
What happened in Vienna?
Biden also revived another episode from October 2019 involving Giuliani associates Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman.
Parnas and Fruman were arrested at Washington Dulles International Airport while holding one-way tickets to Vienna. Giuliani had separately told a journalist that he intended to travel to Vienna around a day later.
Parnas subsequently told Congress that Giuliani had directed him to seek information damaging to the Bidens and that, during his dealings with Ukrainian oligarch Dmytro Firtash, he was among those looking for what they believed to be a Hunter Biden hard drive.
Firtash was living in Vienna while fighting extradition to the United States.
Giuliani denied that his own proposed Vienna trip was connected to Firtash and said at the time that he had another reason for travelling there.
That means Hunter Biden’s wider suggestion about what the group was doing deserves scrutiny, but the precise circumstances and purpose of Giuliani’s planned Vienna trip remain disputed.
“Discovery will be a joy”
Hunter Biden’s response ultimately amounts to a challenge.
Rather than withdrawing his allegations after Giuliani threatened legal action, he has now repeated several of them more explicitly and told Giuliani to take the dispute to court.
If Giuliani does file a defamation case, the litigation could potentially involve requests for documents, communications and testimony relating to the events being disputed, although the scope of any discovery would ultimately be decided through the court process.
For now, Giuliani has threatened to sue.
Hunter Biden’s answer is essentially: go ahead.