Democrat President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter, has initiated a lawsuit against Rudy Giuliani, accusing the former New York City mayor of unauthorized access to his notorious “Laptop from Hell.”
In a court filing on Tuesday, Hunter Biden alleges that Giuliani violated his privacy rights by unlawfully disseminating content from the infamous laptop. However, in suing Giuliani, Hunter Biden implicitly asserts ownership of the Apple computer and all of its contents.
The complaint, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, asserts that Giuliani is the primary actor responsible for the “complete destruction” of Biden’s digital privacy. It also includes Robert Costello, a former federal prosecutor who previously represented Giuliani, as a defendant, according to Fox News.
“For the past many months and even years, Defendants have dedicated an extraordinary amount of time and energy toward looking for, hacking into, tampering with, manipulating, copying, disseminating, and generally obsessing over data that they were given that was taken or stolen from Plaintiff’s devices or storage platforms, including what Defendants claim to have obtained from Plaintiff’s alleged ‘laptop’ computer,” Biden’s attorneys wrote in the complaint, claiming that the data was not even from a “laptop,” but from an “external drive.”
The contents of this “external drive” comprise images, videos, emails, and other data that, since their initial publication by the New York Post in 2020, have placed Hunter Biden in legal jeopardy and created political challenges for his father, President Biden.
Giuliani and Costello have openly acknowledged that they obtained copies of files from a hard drive device that Hunter Biden allegedly left at a Delaware computer repair shop in 2019. Giuliani shared this information with the Post in October 2020, leading to a story based on Hunter Biden’s emails that implicated President Biden in a business deal with a Ukrainian company that had appointed Hunter to its board.
House Republicans initiated an impeachment inquiry into Joe Biden, alleging that he used his position as vice president to discourage Ukrainian prosecutors from investigating the company his son worked for. GOP lawmakers have also claimed, based on subsequent investigations, that the president was involved in multiple business deals orchestrated by his son Hunter.
President Biden has consistently denied any involvement in his son Hunter’s business ventures.
Hunter Biden’s legal team previously issued cease-and-desist letters to Giuliani and others who acquired and disseminated the laptop’s contents.
The lawsuit seeks a court order to prevent Giuliani and others from accessing, altering, manipulating, or duplicating Hunter Biden’s data. The suit also demands the return of the “device/hard drive” to Biden, along with any backup files, cloud files, or copies of the same data.
This lawsuit, filed on Tuesday, is the latest legal action from Hunter Biden and his attorneys in response to these developments.
Leaks of this information thrust Hunter Biden’s controversial personal life into the spotlight of many conservative media outlets.
Earlier this month, Hunter Biden filed a lawsuit against President Donald Trump’s aide, Garrett Ziegler. He alleges that Ziegler and his company disseminated “tens of thousands of emails, thousands of photos, and dozens of videos and recordings” from the device, which were considered “pornographic.”
In March, Biden initiated a countersuit, accusing the Wilmington computer repair shop owner, John Paul Mac Isaac, of unlawfully disseminating his personal information. He leveled six invasion of privacy charges against Mac Isaac.
Mac Isaac initially sued the president’s son, CNN, Politico, and Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) in October 2022 for defamation. According to Mac Isaac, Biden did not retrieve the laptop within three months after dropping it off, and he couldn’t reach him. The younger Biden also failed to pay Mac Isaac for the repair work. Consequently, Mac Isaac contacted the FBI after discovering emails detailing information about then-Vice President Joe Biden’s alleged foreign business dealings and videos depicting Biden using drugs and engaging in sexual activities with prostitutes. Before federal agents took possession of the device, Mac Isaac copied its hard drive and gave it to Trump’s campaign lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, the following year.
Hunter Biden was initially expected to plead guilty in July to two misdemeanor tax counts related to willful failure to pay federal income tax, as part of a plea deal to avoid jail time for a felony gun charge. However, he ultimately pleaded not guilty to two misdemeanor tax charges and one felony gun charge last month.
