Hunter Biden’s (52) attorneys have confirmed that the laptop at the center of recent political attacks belongs to Hunter himself in a letter seeking a criminal probe into what they refer to as an attempt to “weaponize” its contents.
In April 2021, Hunter would not confirm or deny the laptop was his. “I really don’t know what the answer is, that’s the truthful answer,” Hunter said on CBS’s “Sunday Morning” when asked whether the MacBook Pro that was dropped off at a Delaware computer repair shop in April 2019 was in fact his. “I have no idea,” he said.
The computer’s contents were seized upon by Trump as a campaign issue during the 2020 presidential election, as they revealed emails proving Hunter introduced an executive of Ukrainian natural gas firm Burisma to his father while then-Vice President Joe Biden oversaw the Obama administration’s policy toward the Eastern European nation, The New York Post reports. The contents also included videos of Hunter smoking crack and having sex with prostitutes and his work subordinates.
In a new 14-page letter to the Justice Department, signed by prominent Washington attorney Abbe Lowell, Hunter’s lawyers have asked for an investigation into close allies of former President Donald Trump, former Trump strategist Steve Bannon, Trump’s longtime lawyer Rudy Giuliani, and others who had access to the laptop’s data.
The lawyers claim Trump and allies attempted to “weaponize” incriminating contents on the device against Joe Biden.
“This failed dirty political trick directly resulted in the exposure, exploitation, and manipulation of Mr. Biden’s private and personal information,” the letter reads. “Politicians and the news media have used this unlawfully accessed, copied, distributed, and manipulated data to distort the truth and cause harm to Mr. Biden.”
The lawyers also claim that the repair shop owner, John Paul Mac Isaac, “unlawfully” accessed Hunter’s laptop data and that 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.”
The lawyers go on to argue that the individuals involved in accessing and sharing the laptop’s data violated statutes prohibiting unauthorized access to a computer and the transportation of stolen data across state lines.
The letter asks prosecutors to investigate whether the data was manipulated in any way.
“We believe that the facts and circumstances merit further investigation as to whether the conduct of Messrs. Mac Isaac, Costello, Giuliani, Bannon, Ziegler, Maxey, and Apelbaum violated several provisions of Delaware’s criminal code — including, but not necessarily limited to, computer-related property offenses … theft … possession of stolen property … and misapplication of another’s property … Each of these offenses, if violated, has the potential to be a felony, depending on the value of the property in question,” the lawyers write.
The letter also requests a retraction and apology from Fox News host Tucker Carlson for “false and defamatory” claims made about Hunter Biden.
“The actions described above more than merit a full investigation and, depending on the resulting facts, may merit prosecution under various statutes. It is not a common thing for a private person and his counsel to seek someone else being investigated, but the actions and motives here require it,” Lowell wrote in the letter.
This request for a criminal inquiry represents a shift in strategy for Hunter Biden and his legal team as they seek to combat years of probing by Republican officials and conservative media.
In response to the letter, computer repair shop owner John Paul Mac Isaac declined to comment, while Rudy Giuliani’s lawyer Robert Costello called the letter “a frivolous legal document” and said it “reeks of desperation because they know judgment day is coming for the Bidens.”
The letter to the Justice Department was addressed to its top national security official, Matthew Olsen.
Hunter Biden is also currently facing a tax evasion investigation.
