CNN
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Hunter Biden’s lawyers on Wednesday asked state and federal agencies to investigate the owner of a computer repair shop, Rudy Giuliani and a number of right-wing politicians involved in spreading the content of his laptop, saying they committed computer and other criminal offenses in their effort to “use” the contents of the laptop against his father.
The allegations — made in letters to the Delaware attorney general, the Justice Department’s National Security Division and the IRS — mark the first time President Joe Biden’s son and his legal team have publicly acknowledged that it was his personal data believed to be found on a laptop left at a Delaware repair shop. However, his legal team said their new outreach does not amount to confirming the laptop narrative being circulated by the right.
The letters signal a distinct change in Hunter Biden’s strategy after bringing in new lawyers to help defend him against an attack by Republicans, who seek to use his personal drug war and congressional investigations into his business dealings to attack the president. Hunter Biden also faces an ongoing federal criminal investigation focused on taxes and other issues.
In addition to letters to government agencies, Biden’s lawyers sent a cease-and-desist letter to Fox News and network host Tucker Carlson on Wednesday, calling for the retraction of a story that aired on Carlson’s performance that Biden’s team said was false. CNN has reached out to Fox News for comment.
In a letter to Delaware Attorney General Kathy Jennings, Hunter Biden’s lawyers accused computer repair shop owner John Paul Mac Isaac of unauthorized access to the laptop and distribution of its contents to New York Post for a story published in the weeks before the 2020 election. Mac Isaac said in a memoir and media interviews that he received the laptop in his store from Hunter Biden in 2019.
“This failed dirty political trick directly resulted in the exposure, exploitation, and manipulation of Mr. Biden’s private and personal information. Mr. Mac Isaac’s willful, reckless, and unlawful conduct allowed hundreds of gigabytes of Mr. Biden’s personal data, without any discretion, to be disseminated throughout the Internet,” Hunter Biden’s attorney said. Abbe Lowell wrote the letter.
The letter demanded an investigation into Garrett Ziegler, John Paul Mac Isaac, Robert Costello, Rudy Giuliani and Stephen Bannon.
Mac Isaac’s lawyer Brian R. Della Rocca confirmed receipt of the letter and said, after skimming it, all he saw was “a privileged person hiring another expensive lawyer to move the attention from his own unlawful actions.” Costello called it a “legally meaningless document” and accused Biden’s new legal team of trying to intimidate people. A Giuliani communications adviser, Ted Goodman, called the letters a “blatant attempt to silence.” CNN has reached out to each of the other individuals or their attorneys for comment.
The Justice Department declined to comment and CNN also reached out to the IRS and the Delaware attorney general’s office.
In the years since the laptop’s existence first became public, Hunter Biden has sought to cast doubt on the source of his personal information that allegedly came from the laptop. It appears to contain a large amount of detailed information, including, among other things, business documents, emails and photos, including some potentially damaging materials.
“There was a laptop there that was stolen from me,” Hunter Biden said in a 2021 CBS interview while promoting his memoir. “I may have been hacked. It could be the — that it’s Russian intelligence. It must have been stolen from me.”
On Wednesday, Lowell, Biden’s lawyer, said the new letters from Biden’s team “do not corroborate Mac Isaac’s or anyone else’s version of a so-called laptop.”
“They are responding to their conduct in seeking, manipulating and disseminating what they say is Mr. Biden’s personal data, regardless of where they claim to have obtained it,” Lowell said in a statement to CNN.
Mac Isaac said he got the laptop in April 2019 when Hunter Biden dropped the laptop off at his shop for repairs.
Biden signed a contract with Mac Isaac, which included a policy stating that if the laptop was not retrieved within 90 days, it would become Mac Isaac’s property, according to the owner’s manual. repair shop. Mac Isaac writes that Biden never returned for the laptop.
But by his own account, Mac Isaac said he checked files on Hunter Biden’s laptop the day after it went down. In his book, Mac Isaac said the day after Hunter Biden dropped the laptop, he noticed a file titled “income.pdf” on the hard drive, which apparently tracked Biden’s finances.
FBI agents served a subpoena and seized the laptop on December 9, 2019, according to Mac Isaac.
According to Robert Costello, Giuliani’s lawyer, a copy of the hard drive was sent to one of Giuliani’s company addresses in late August or early September 2020. Giuliani later sent a copy of the hard drive to New York Post.
Giuliani told The Wall Street Journal in October 2020 that he had “every right to use” the hard drive.
A research team run by Garrett Ziegler, a former aide to Trump White House counsel Peter Navarro, has posted emails and documents it says came from Hunter’s laptop on a website accessible at public. According to Politico, Ziegler said he received a copy of the laptop through Giuliani and Bernard Kerik, the former New York City police commissioner and associate of Giuliani.
On the website where Ziegler’s team, Marco Polo, posted the alleged contents of the laptop, a disclaimer read: “Marco Polo confirms that the contents of the Biden Laptop are abandoned property.”
In an interview with CBS in April 2021, Hunter Biden said he had “no idea if the laptop was his or not” but said it was possible. When asked if he had dropped off his laptop for repair in Delaware, Hunter Biden said no.
“Not that I remember everything,” he added.
This story has been updated with additional details.
