Dick Harpootlian, the South Carolina attorney who represented convicted killer Alex Murdaugh in his six-week 2023 murder trial, has a new high-profile client: Hunter Biden, the son of former President Joe Biden.

Harpootlian will be representing Hunter Biden in a federal libel lawsuit that Biden brought against Patrick Byrne, an outspoken conservative who founded the online retailer Overstock.com. Byrne has been written about for years in national publications, which describe his many sides: a survivalist, an entrepreneur, a cryptocurrency advocate, a promoter of 2020 stolen election claims, a libertarian, a Trump supporter and a Stanford University graduate.

Harpootlian confirmed his representation in a Monday interview with The State newspaper and said the trial is scheduled to start in late July in Los Angeles. Harpootlian was recently retained by Biden and will be lead attorney, he said. An associate of Harpootlian’s, attorney Phil Barber, will also be on the case.

Harpootlian, a longtime friend of former President Joe Biden, said he has known Hunter Biden for more than a decade. Harpootlian said he is replacing Abbe Lowell, a nationally known white-collar lawyer who has dropped out of the case.

Harpootlian, 76, a former state senator and elected prosecutor, declined further comment.

In 2019, Byrne, 62, resigned as the CEO of Overstock.com after he “disclosed that he had been in a romantic relationship with Maria Butina, a woman accused of being a Russian spy who tried to infiltrate circles of political power before the 2016 presidential election,” according to the New York Times. He currently has 391,000 followers on X, formerly known as Twitter.

In his 2023 lawsuit, filed in the Central District of California, Hunter Biden, 55, accuses Byrne of being a “serial liar” and falsely saying in 2021 that Biden was “was reaching out to the Iranian government in the fall of 2021” and offering to have President Biden “unfreeze” $8 billion in Iranian funds “in return for $800 million being funneled into a numbered account for us,” according to a complaint in the case filed in federal court in California.

“These statements are completely false, and Byrne knew them to be false at the time he made them,” the lawsuit says.

The statements at issue were allegedly made by Byrne in a July 2023 article in an online publication called Capitol Times.

In an answer to Biden’s lawsuit, Byrne denied some allegations and said he “neither admits nor denies” others.

Byrne also said Biden is a “public figure” who knew he “would subject himself to scrutiny and criticism in the public forum.”

Byrne’s answer also said his “alleged defamatory statements ... are true and thus serve as an absolute defense to defamation and are protected speech.”

Byrne is a resident of Florida; Biden, of California.

Hunter Biden is controversial in his own way.

For years, conservatives and Trump allies have made Hunter Biden a kind of lightning rod for unproven allegations of corruption and double-dealing involving Iran, Ukraine and China. In right-wing circles, on television and social media, allegations about what might be on Hunter Biden’s laptop rose to fever pitch.

Hunter Biden’s troubled personal life was also the subject of scrutiny. Last year, he pleaded guilty to tax and firearms-related charges. His problems with drugs also have made the news. Before leaving office, President Biden pardoned his son for all federal offenses committed for the last 10 years.

The judge in the case is Stephen Wilson, who was named to the bench in 1985 by President Ronald Reagan.

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