Hunter Biden announced Thursday that he is launching a Substack newsletter to publish a series of essays about “the last seven years” of his life, starting with an entry titled “The Laptop” that disputes the origins and authenticity of the device that triggered a federal criminal investigation and years of congressional scrutiny.
“Over on Substack I’m writing about the last seven years of my life. It’s the first draft of the whole story. All of it,” Hunter Biden posted on X, promoting his first installment alongside a video series he is calling “Where’s Hunter?”
The first essay takes direct aim at the laptop’s provenance. Hunter Biden wrote that while he will use the term “the laptop,” “the name is not accurate, the provenance was never established, and no court or forensic examiner ever certified the chain of custody that would have made it evidence rather than theater.” He claimed a political scandal was constructed first, and “a laptop was produced to anchor it.”
The New York Post first reported on the laptop in October 2020, weeks before the presidential election. The device, which Hunter Biden left at a Delaware computer repair shop in April 2019, contained emails, photographs, financial records, and messages that formed the factual backbone of two separate Republican-led congressional investigations into the Biden family’s overseas business dealings. The FBI took custody of the laptop in December 2019.
Independent forensic analysis conducted by the New York Times in 2022 confirmed that thousands of emails on the device were authentic. The Washington Post conducted its own verification the same year, reaching the same conclusion. No court has ruled the device fabricated.
Hunter Biden acknowledged in the essay that the laptop did contain evidence of his addiction. “Twenty years of my life, or a version of it. Messages sent at hours that don’t belong to anyone sober. Photographs I would never have taken in daylight,” he wrote.
He was convicted in June 2024 on three federal gun charges stemming from his purchase of a firearm while lying about his drug use. Prosecutors dropped separate federal tax charges under a plea deal later that year. President Biden issued his son a broad preemptive pardon in December 2024.
The essay rollout is accompanied by a video series. Hunter Biden told followers he will release chapters every few days.
Twitter, Facebook, and other platforms suppressed the New York Post’s original October 2020 reporting on the laptop in the weeks before the election. Twitter locked the Post’s account entirely. A 2022 investigation led by House Republicans found that FBI officials had warned social media companies to be on alert for “Russian disinformation” ahead of the Post story’s publication. FBI Director James Comey’s successor later acknowledged that no evidence linked the laptop to a Russian disinformation campaign.
