Hunter Biden fled to South Africa last week for a luxurious holiday with 24-hour Secret Service protection.
California District Court Judge Herman Vera granted Hunter's motion to dismiss the lawsuit Thursday after claiming it was too broken to continue suing former Trump staffer Garrett Ziegler and his nonprofit Marco Polo.
However, the photos show that Hunter was already in Cape Town. The case was fired and stayed at a $500 beachfront villa, which is described on its website as “a spectacular, spectacular designer home for viewing the sea.”
Ziegler's lawyers alleged last week that Hunter “flew to South Africa to avoid his deposition in this case.”
“He was in South Africa before the judge decided the case,” Ziegler said Friday. “That means he assumes Daddy's appointee will go to the rubber stamp what he wants.”
Hunter and his South African-born wife Melissa Cohen were spotted walking through Cape Town's high-end shopping district this week in a photo provided in a post by independent reporter Laura Rumer.
Legal costs $200,000
Ziegler includes the image in his next courthouse, seeking legal fees of $200,000 that occurred after Hunter sued him with a digitized version of his infamous “laptop from hell.”
The Joe Biden scandal-prone son, 55-year-old, is not entitled to the statutory Secret Service protection, which applies only to children of former presidents under the age of 16, according to the Former Presidential Protection Act (codified in Section 3056).
However, Biden issued an enforcement memorandum before indefinitely extending his son's Secret Service protections, according to sources in the Trump administration.
Anger at the cost
“While we cannot comment on the details of the safeguards and methods, we can confirm that Biden is a licensed guardian of the Secret Service in the United States,” Secret Service spokesman Anthony Grielmi posted Friday.
Grielmi did not confirm that 18 Secret Service agents traveled to Cape Town with Hunter. But he said, “Our agents are trained, approved and mandated by federal law to provide security anywhere in the world to individuals exposed to our protection.”
Rumer cites local sources who claim that Hunter stays at a nearby four-star hotel, collects payments per meal, and travels with three agents, 18 agents renting two cars and six backup agents.
Taxpayer costs could be $500,000 when Secret Service fades.
For six months after taking office in 2021, President Trump extended Secret Service protections to four adult children, prompting intense criticism from Democrats and the media for complaining about the estimated $1.7 million cost.
Ziegler says that the special distribution of Hunter's Secret Service “should be revoked because Hunter was not completely honest with the court.”
Hunter's lawyer told the court last week that Ziegler's lawyer, Jennifer Holliday, was “demean.”
Hunter claimed that his paintings were no longer selling, and that his home was voided by a wildfire in LA.
