Former President Donald Trump’s aide Garrett Ziegler is trying to get a civil lawsuit filed by Hunter Biden against him dismissed. In a motion to a federal judge in the Central District of California, he asked for the case to be tossed as he slams it as “half-baked.”
Former Trump aide asks judge to dismiss 'half-baked' Hunter Biden laptop civil case https://t.co/Ag6kViq4Sh
— Fox News (@FoxNews) December 22, 2023
The lawsuit accuses Ziegler and his company, Marco Polo USA as well as 10 associates of spreading content from Biden’s laptop that were considered “pornographic.” According to the lawsuit, “tens of thousands of emails, thousands of photos, and dozens of videos and recordings” were spread.
However, Ziegler is saying the case is based on “half-baked legal challenges” and is “aimed at chilling the valid exercise of the constitutional rights of freedom of speech.” In a 30-page filing, his defense team stated that Biden’s lawyers have not brought forward “a viable claim” nor have they proven that Ziegler’s conduct led to Biden’s claims of injury relating to the data.
“Plaintiff alleges no facts which demonstrate Defendants ever accessed any computer, storage, or service which Plaintiff either owns or has exclusive control over,” the former Trump aide’s attorneys wrote.
The defense team further argued that their client’s posts that revealed the contents of the laptop counts as protected activity as “it involves a public figure and is a matter of public importance.”
Ziegler’s attorneys also brought up the existence of a connection between Ziegler and the state of California, as they said a connection would invalidate the jurisdiction of the state where Biden filed the lawsuit.
Biden’s lawyers claim in the 14-page civil complaint that Zeigler has been on a “sustained, unhinged and obsessed campaign” against the entire Biden family for more than two years. According to them, the former Trump aide “spent countless hours accessing, tampering with, manipulating, altering, copying and damaging computer data,” a crime they said he committed with the support of his associates.