Attorneys for Hunter Biden on Wednesday asked state and federal agencies to investigate a computer repair shop owner, Rudy Giuliani and number of right-wing political figures involved in disseminating contents of his laptop, alleging that they committed computer and other criminal violations in their effort to “weaponize” the laptop contents 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 purported to be found on a laptop left at the Delaware repair shop.
The letters signal a distinct change in strategy by Hunter Biden after bringing on new lawyers to help defend him against an onslaught of attacks from Republicans, who have sought to use his personal struggles with drugs and congressional probes of his business dealings to attack the president. Hunter Biden also faces an ongoing federal criminal investigation that is focused on tax and other issues.
In the letter to Delaware Attorney General Kathy Jennings, Hunter Biden’s attorneys accuse computer repair shop owner John Paul Mac Isaac of unauthorized access of the laptop and distributing its contents to the New York Post for a story published in the weeks before the 2020 election. Mac Isaac has said in a memoir and media interviews that he received the laptop at 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 intentional, reckless, and unlawful conduct allowed for hundreds of gigabytes of Mr. Biden’s personal data, without any discretion, to be circulated around the Internet,” Hunter Biden’s attorney Abbe Lowell wrote in the letter.