Hunter Biden is moving to end his lawsuit against a former Trump aide, citing financial troubles.
Biden sued Garrett Ziegler in 2023, accusing the former staffer of violating state and federal laws by creating a searchable database of Biden’s emails. The suit accuses Ziegler of “accessing, tampering with, manipulating, [and] altering” content from a laptop connected with Biden.
While the judge overseeing the case in September rejected a motion by Ziegler to dismiss the case and order him to pay nearly $18,000 in legal fees to Biden, the former president’s son says he does not have the financial wherewithal to continue the litigation.
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“Plaintiff has suffered a significant downturn in his income and has significant debt in the millions of dollars range. Moreover, this lack of resources has been exacerbated after the fires in the Pacific Palisades in early January upended Plaintiff’s life by rendering his rental house unlivable for an extended period of time,” Biden’s attorneys wrote in a court filing.
“Plaintiff must focus his time and resources dealing with his relocation, the damage he has incurred due to the fires, and paying for his family’s living expenses as opposed to this litigation.”
The filing notes that Biden has experienced a “significant downturn” in his finances, citing both declines in book sales of his memoir as well as sales of his artwork, which the filing describes as his primary sources of income.
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Biden said in a declaration that while he previously sold numerous pieces of artwork for an average of about $50,000, he’s only recently sold one piece for $36,000. His book sales have also dropped to one third of what they were when he began litigation.
Biden has previously brought other suits related to the fallout from his laptop, including a suit with similar claims against Rudy Giuliani, which the president’s son moved to drop last year.
