Left: Patrick Byrne, the former chief executive of Overstock.com and an ally of former President Donald Trump, takes a break from being questioned by the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attacks, in Washington, Friday, July 15, 2022 (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite). Right: FILE – Hunter Biden departs from federal court June 11, 2024, in Wilmington, Del. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum).
Complaints continue to fly between former Overstock CEO Patrick Byrne and Hunter Biden in a long-running lawsuit where the presidential son claims the businessman defamed him.
Earlier this week, Byrne’s attorney filed a declaration complaining that Biden’s legal team gave the defense some “543 pages of documents” which were not previously disclosed, not on a list of proposed trial exhibits, and, in deadline terms, “past the discovery cut off.”
Filed in support of a separate motion in limine, Byrne argued the court should “preclude” Biden “from referring, mentioning, or using in any manner any of the documents contained” in that allegedly late discovery dump “during the trial of this case.” Specifically, as the overarching motion elaborates, the defense wants to keep out any evidence or witness testimony that was not disclosed in discovery.
Now, Biden’s attorneys say Byrne’s attorney simply got it wrong — and is protesting far too much about the documents themselves.
“Defendant is incorrect because, although the District Court did not set a discovery cut-off, based on the District Court’s standing order the discovery cut-off in this case is by default November 19, 2024 (i.e., three weeks before the date set for trial),” the Biden response reads. “As such, any documents produced before or on November 19, 2024, are timely.”
Biden’s lawyers say they produced the disputed documents the day before the default discovery cut-off, on Nov. 18.
Trial in the lawsuit is slated to begin on Dec. 10.
More Law&Crime coverage: Ex-Overstock CEO says Hunter Biden is basically just calling him ‘a right-wing nutjob’ in order to keep his Iran-themed defamation lawsuit afloat
In the underlying lawsuit, Biden claims Byrne defamed him during a June 2023 interview — and then again in October 2023.
Biden says Byrne made false claims that he and his family solicited bribes from the Islamic Republic of Iran in exchange for the Biden administration releasing billions of frozen Iranian funds and for adopting a pro-Iranian position during “nuclear talks.”
Here’s how Biden’s lawsuit recounts the basis of the complaint:
Interviewer: “Patrick, you are claiming that 18 months ago, the Biden Family was seeking a bribe from Iran to release funds frozen in South Korea, and to go easy in nuclear talks, and that the United States Government has been aware of this since December, 2021?”
Byrne: “100% correct.”
Ex-Overstock CEO says Hunter Biden’s Iranian bribery plot defamation lawsuit should fail ‘in its entirety,’ can’t prove he had ‘doubts’ about his claims
In the Thursday filing, Biden’s lawyers also insist the discovery production was, in one relevant sense, nothing new.
From the response at length:
[E]ach of the documents in Plaintiff’s recent supplemental document production were equally available to Defendant as they all fall into the following categories of documents: publicly accessible articles about Defendant, filings in various lawsuits in which Defendant was/is a party, social media postings about Defendant, publicly available documents relating to The America project, an entity founded by Defendant, documents obtained on November 19, 2024 from Capitol Times Media LLC in response to Plaintiff’s third-party subpoena for the production of business records, and Defendant’s own testimony before the U.S. House of Representatives Select Committee on the January 6th Attack on the U.S. Capitol.
“Therefore, Defendant has suffered no prejudice whatsoever by Plaintiff’s timely document production in this regard,” Biden’s response continues.
As the pretrial motions fly in the case, the court has kept its cards close — giving little indiction of how the various requests will play out as the sides jockey for their final positions and procedural wins (and losses) ahead of jury selection.
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