Hunter Biden’s lawyers want the owner of a computer repair shop where their client dropped off a laptop and others investigated.
CNN reported Thursday Biden’s lawyers “asked state and federal agencies to investigate a computer repair shop owner, Rudy Giuliani and [a] 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.”
His lawyers asked for the investigations in letters to the Department of Justice’s National Security Division and the IRS. The request for investigations marked the first time Hunter Biden’s lawyers acknowledged data on a laptop discovered at a Delaware computer repair shop was his.
Though his lawyers stressed their acknowledgment that the data is Hunter Biden’s is not a confirmation of the narrative promulgated by conservative media.
NEW: In a letter demanding probes of the dissemination of Hunter Biden's files, his lawyer appears to admit the underlying data is real, but also casts doubt on the origin story, noting it "supposedly originated from a computer left at [John Paul Mac Isaac's] repair shop in Del." pic.twitter.com/umLjrWpAok
— Kenneth P. Vogel (@kenvogel) February 1, 2023
In a letter to Delaware Attorney General Kathy Jenning, his lawyers claim John Paul Mac Isaac, the owner of the computer repair shop, accessed data on the computer without authorization.
“This failed dirty political trick directly resulted in the exposure, exploitation, and manipulation of Mr. Biden’s private and personal information,” the letter argues.
It goes on, “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 reportedly signed a contract when he dropped off the laptop. It stipulated if he did not pick it up within 90 days, it would become the property of Mac Isaac.
However, Mac Isaac has stated he went through some of the data on the computer the day after it was dropped off.
The letter asks for an investigation into Mac Isaac, former Trump aide Garrett Ziegler, former Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani, Giuliani’s attorney Robert Costello, and Steve Bannon.
Hunter Biden’s lawyers also sent a cease-and-desist letter to Fox News and host Tucker Carlson.
The call for an investigation is just the latest response to the laptop’s discovery.
First, the laptop was labeled Russian disinformation. Then Hunter Biden said he did not know if it was his. Now his lawyers want the owner of the repair shop investigated because its contents were spread around the world.
To be fair, conservative media has reveled a lot — and somewhat bizarrely — in pictures and emails from the laptop.
But suppose you’re of a high-profile individual or related to, say, a presidential candidate, who keeps potentially unflattering pictures or documents on their computer. In that case, you should probably delete or remove those materials from the computer before you drop them off at a repair shop.
At the very least, you should not sign a contract that states if you do not pick it up after a specific time, it becomes someone else’s property, and then decline to pick it up with all that data on it.
