Hunter Biden escalated the legal fight over his controversial laptop on Friday, filing a countersuit against the Delaware computer repairman who released a trove of documents from the first son’s computer.
Hunter Biden’s lawyers claim John Paul Mac Isaac invaded the troubled presidential son’s privacy by providing his computer files to allies of former president Donald Trump and members of the media before the 2020 election. The countersuit is a response to Mac Isaac’s lawsuit against Biden and various news outlets who accused the repairman of stealing the computer.
Mac Isaac has said Biden dropped off his laptop for repairs in April 2019 but never came back to retrieve it. The repairman says he reviewed the laptop’s contents and, troubled by what he saw, provided a copy of the laptop hard drive to the FBI in late 2019. He then gave a copy of the computer to Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani, who later shared the documents with the New York Post and other news outlets.
The countersuit is part of Biden’s aggressive new strategy to reshape the narrative about his laptop, which contains details of his foreign business dealings. Emails and text messages also reveal Biden’s spiral into drug addiction and his predilection for prostitutes. Last month, Biden sent letters to the Justice Department and the Delaware attorney general asking them to investigate Mac Isaac and Giuliani over their handling of the laptop. Biden, who has been under federal investigation since 2018, also refused requests from House Republicans to turn over documents related to his businesses.
Biden’s lawyers said they plan to depose Mac Isaac, Giuliani, and others as part of their case. They also denied that Biden admits he gave his computer to Mac Isaac.
"This is not an admission by Mr. Biden that Mac Isaac (or others) in fact possessed any particular laptop containing electronically stored data belonging to Mr. Biden," the court filing says. "Rather, Mr. Biden simply acknowledges that at some point, Mac Isaac obtained electronically stored data, some of which belonged to Mr. Biden."
Biden has largely avoided speaking publicly about the origins of the laptop. He has suggested in interviews that it could have been stolen or hacked, possibly by Russian operatives. But Biden has not disputed that he gave his computer to Mac Isaac. And the repairman has released an invoice that bears Biden’s signature authorizing repairs on his computer.