State Sen. Wendy Rogers (R-Flagstaff) came under criticism for retweeting a video clip that contained a few blurred-out photos of Hunter Biden engaging in sexual acts. The video accompanied a tweet stating that there are 459 crimes related to the Biden family.
Tom Ryan, a progressive Arizona attorney, told Arizona’s Family that Rogers violated Arizona’s revenge porn law. However, the law requires intentionality. State Senate President Warren Petersen (R-Mesa) released a statement to Arizona’s Family calling Roger’s retweet a mistake. “[Rogers] didn’t realize those images were in that video until it was brought to her attention, and she immediately removed the video from her feed,” Petersen said.
A.R.S. 13-1425 states that releasing a nude photo of someone or a photo of them engaged in a sex act publicly without their permission requires intentionality. Since Rogers was unaware the clip contained the photos, and deleted them immediately after she discovered it, a prosecutor would be unlikely to bring charges due to the difficulty of proving that element.
In April 2021, Fox News showed a clip containing a blurred-out photo of Hunter engaging in a sex act with two women. There has been no report of a lawsuit or prosecution.
Bryan Blehm, an attorney who is representing Kari Lake in her election challenge, also disagreed that Petersen’s retweet violated the law. “The ultimate irony here is that the Left is now going after one of Arizona’s top two senators for doing nothing more than exposing the gross hedonism running rampant in both Washington, D.C. an the Democratic Party,” he told The Arizona Sun Times. “What makes it really hypocritical is that Democrats and the left openly support adult males shaking their penises in the faces of our children in public. Maybe they should adjust their priorities. They have nothing on the law so this is pure politics.”
“It’s pretty telling,” Kari Lake told The Sun Times, comparing it to how she is being similarly targeted with baseless accusations.
“Sweet Grandma named Senator Wendy Rogers exposes pictures of Biden family depravity & the corrupt political machine accuses her of revenge porn. A Mama Bear on a mission exposes systemic election fraud & they try to throw me in jail.”
Lake tied it into criticism of the new film The Sound of Freedom. “Brave filmmakers release an incredible film about the evils of child sex trafficking & the corporate media declares them conspiracy theorists. The corrupt machine tries to destroy everyone who threatens their control. But we choose sunlight over their gas light,” she said.
In her retweet, Rogers said, “It’s all here in black and white. Oh, and apparently in NBC living color.” The video was tweeted by the Illuminatibot account, which has almost a million followers. The tweet has not been taken down. There has been no report of law enforcement deciding to bring charges.
Twitter allows nudity and sex acts on the platform to some extent. The policy states, “We allow adult content — like full or partial nudity or sexual acts — on Twitter as long as it doesn’t break our sensitive media policy,” which includes nonconsensual photos. Many photos of Hunter Biden engaged in sex acts are shared regularly on Twitter, and a website has been up since mid-June containing all of the thousands of photos found on his discarded laptop.
State Rep. David Cook (R-Globe), one of the most moderate Republicans in the Arizona Legislature, tweeted that he was going to primary Rogers. Conservatives quickly rushed to Rogers’ defense however. EZAZ founder Merissa Hamilton pointed to Cook’s DUI and alleged history of sexually harassing women.
You would think drunk posting on Twitter (which is a violation of probation) and sexually harassing women would be completely unacceptable in LD7, but here we are https://t.co/ulZPRe7HHa
— Merissa Hamilton 🗳 ⛽ 🗽🔥 (@merissahamilton) July 7, 2023
Twitter user @Amuse observed, “PORN: Democrats threaten to prosecute Republicans who have shared videos and pictures of Hunter Biden with underage girls under various ‘revenge porn’ statutes. Why aren’t Democrats worried about prosecuting the Bidens for abusing kids?”
It is unknown whether Hunter obtained the permission of all of the women he filmed without clothing or engaging in sexual acts prior to doing so.
Joe Hoft of The Gateway Pundit observed that when he pointed out on Twitter that Hunter may have shared photos of a family member on PornHub, violating the revenge porn law himself, Hoft’s account and those who retweeted him were suspended.
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Rachel Alexander is a reporter at The Arizona Sun Times and The Star News Network. Follow Rachel on Twitter. Email tips to [email protected].
