Hunter Biden laptop controversy

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Hunter Biden in 2013

The Hunter Biden laptop controversy gained significant attention in October 2020 after the New York Post published an article revealing compelling evidence found on Hunter's laptop. The evidence included emails and photographs, some of which were pivotal in establishing Hunter's drug use and attempts to conceal it by lying on a firearm application, which later resulted in his conviction of three felony gun charges on June 11, 2024. Other emails have implicated Hunter's father Joe Biden, then-presidential candidate and former vice president under Barack Obama, as a potential participant in financial deals with foreign adversaries that may have impacted his decision making, and threatened national security.[1]

The Post article sparked intense debate as national news outlets questioned the laptop's existence and its claims, initially dismissing the story as "Russian disinformation". Social media platforms chose to restrict posts about the coverage, which was perceived by many users as censorship. Despite the multiple emails potentially linking President Biden to corrupt business dealings, none have yet been substantiated; therefore, investigations by authorities are ongoing. The laptop has also provided enough evidence to implicate Hunter Biden in other matters.[2]

There have been reports of significant earnings and potential misconduct tied to Hunter's international business dealings. From 2013 to 2018, through his roles as an attorney and board member, Hunter garnered around $11 million from Burisma, and other work with a Chinese businessman charged with fraud. The NBC News' review of Hunter's hard drive, iCloud data, and Senate-released documents highlighted concerns over national security, ethics, and possible legal issues. Furthermore, in December 2020, Hunter Biden admitted to being the subject of a federal tax investigation. It was reported that he was advised by a former business partner to amend his tax returns to account for $400,000 in income from Burisma.

In light of 2024 being a presidential election year in the U.S., the House Oversight Committee, led by Chairman James Comer, has committed to continuing their investigation into the Biden family's domestic and international business activities to assess potential risks to U.S. national security and President Biden's impartiality. The committee has been examining patterns of the Biden family leveraging government access for personal gain, possibly at the expense of U.S. interests. The investigation aims to trace the complex international transactions involving millions of dollars to determine if these dealings compromise American interests and pose a national security threat.[3]

Background

The laptop incident began on April 12, 2019, when Hunter Biden dropped off his laptop for repairs at a small computer repair shop in the Trolley Square shopping center in Delaware. The next day, he dropped off an external hard drive. Shop owner John Paul Mac Isaac explained that a year and a half later, the laptop and hard drive had not been retrieved, and that the repair bill of $85.00 had not been paid. According to Isaac, when a customer doesn't return after 90 days, he considers the merchandise abandoned. During the summer and fall of 2020, Isaac started browsing the laptop's files, and became alarmed over the contents. He contacted an associate who was more versed in the law and current events than Isaac considered himself to be. It was Isaac's associate who contacted the FBI.[4] Prior to turning over Biden's laptop and external hard drive to the FBI, Isaac had made copies which he provided to Robert Costello, attorney for Rudy Giuliani. In December 2019, under the authority of a subpoena issued by a Wilmington grand jury, the FBI subpoened the laptop from Mac Isaac.[4]

It was reported that the laptop's hard drive contained emails from 2015 that formed the foundation of the New York Post article that was published October 14, 2020, just weeks prior to the November presidential election. The article reported that Hunter Biden, who was serving on the board of Burisma Holdings, the Ukrainian energy firm implicated in bribery, introduced his father, then Vice-President Joe Biden, to a top executive at Burisma just months prior to the vice-president putting pressure on Ukrainian government officials to fire the prosecutor who was investigating the company.[5][6]

The media coverage of the laptop spurred speculation about the Biden–Ukraine conspiracy theory, which alleged that then vice president Joe Biden acted in Ukraine to protect his son from a corruption investigation by Ukrainian Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin. On October 14, 2020, the New York Post published an article based on an email from the laptop about a purported meeting between then vice president Joe Biden and the Burisma advisor Vadym Pozharskyi. The Biden campaign denied Joe Biden had any meeting with Pozharskyi and said that if they had ever met, it would have been a brief encounter.[7] Witnesses at the dinner where they allegedly met said Joe Biden briefly passed by to see an old friend. The Post reported in its story that Pozharskyi declined to comment, and he did not comment to a Politico journalist who reported extensively on the story a year later.[8]

The Post reported that the email was found in a cache of data extracted from the external hard drive of the laptop computer that purportedly belonged to Hunter Biden. The Post reported that the repair shop owner had made a copy of the external hard drive before it was seized by the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and that the copy was later provided to the Post by Donald Trump's attorney, Rudy Giuliani. The subpoena to seize the laptop was issued by a grand jury on behalf of the US attorney's office in Wilmington, which was later reported to have been investigating Hunter Biden about lobbying and financial matters since at least 2018.[9][10]

The veracity of the Post's reporting was strongly questioned by many mainstream media outlets, analysts, and intelligence officials due to the unknown origin and chain of custody of the laptop and the provenance of its contents and also due to suspicion it possibly may have been used as part of a disinformation campaign by Russian intelligence or its proxies.[11][12][13]

As of June 11, 2024, subsequent investigations have confirmed the existence of Hunter Biden's laptop and the authenticity of some of its contents, as reported by multiple media outlets. However, The New York Post's claims of irrefutable connections between the laptop's messages and alleged corrupt foreign business dealings involving President Biden have not been substantiated. A New York Post editorial criticized other news organizations for initially dismissing the story as "Russian disinformation," only to later discuss the laptop as credible evidence during Hunter Biden's gun trial. Sohrab Ahmari, The Post's opinion editor when the story first broke, labeled the mainstream media's handling of the coverage as "shameful."[2]

Lawsuits

In December 2020, Mac Isaac sued Twitter for defamation over their handling of the New York Post story, claiming that their decision to remove the article under their "hacked materials" policy falsely tarred him as a hacker.[14] Florida district judge Beth Bloom dismissed the lawsuit with prejudice in September 2021, noting that Twitter never mentioned Mac Isaac or his business, and ordered Mac Isaac to pay Twitter's attorney fees under Florida's anti-SLAPP statue.[15] In May 2022, Mac Isaac again sued a number of individuals and publications for defamation, alleging that he had suffered reputational damage over claims that the laptop story had been part of a Russian disinformation campaign and that he had illegally accessed the data on the laptop. The suit named Hunter Biden, Democratic representative Adam Schiff, and the news publications CNN, Politico, and The Daily Beast.[16][17][18]

In March 2023, Hunter Biden countersued Mac Isaac, responding to his defamation suit and alleging that Mac Isaac had invaded his privacy and had no legal right to copy and distribute his private information. The suit lists six counts of invasion of privacy by Mac Isaac and others, and seeks a jury trial to determine compensatory and punitive damages.[18][19]

In September 2023, Hunter Biden filed a civil lawsuit against Giuliani, his companies and attorney Robert Costello, alleging that they invaded Biden's privacy by distributing information from his laptop. Biden accused them of being "primarily responsible" for the "total annihilation" of his digital privacy, seeking $75,000 in damages. In June 2024, Hunter's attorneys have moved to dismiss the lawsuit against Giuliani and Costello. The dismissal, which requires judicial approval, stipulates that each party will cover their own legal fees. Giuliani's spokesperson hailed the dismissal as a victory, claiming it proves Biden’s allegations were false and reaffirms Giuliani’s integrity. This legal development coincides with Hunter Biden's recent conviction on three felony counts for illegally purchasing a firearm, which could lead to a sentence of up to 25 years, though such a lengthy sentence is unlikely for a first-time offender.[20]

See also

References

  1. ^ Chapman, Ben (June 14, 2024). "Hunter Biden: Journalist who broke laptop story sheds light on 'mysterious letter'". GB News. Retrieved June 22, 2024.
  2. ^ a b Robertson, Katie (June 12, 2024). "Hunter Biden's Laptop, Revealed by New York Post, Comes Back to Haunt Him". The New York Times. Retrieved June 17, 2024.
  3. ^ "United States House Committee on Oversight and Accountability". United States House Committee on Oversight and Accountability. June 5, 2024. Retrieved June 22, 2024.
  4. ^ a b Baker, Karl (October 15, 2020). "Meet Delaware repairman at center of NY Post's Hunter Biden laptop story". Delawareonline.com. Retrieved June 17, 2024.
  5. ^ Morris, Emma-Jo; Fonrouge, Gabrielle (October 14, 2020). "Smoking-gun email reveals how Hunter Biden introduced Ukrainian businessman to VP dad". New York Post. Retrieved June 17, 2024.
  6. ^ "N.Y. Post Says It Obtained Hunter Biden Emails on Ukraine". Bloomberg. October 14, 2020. Archived from the original on November 27, 2020. Retrieved October 17, 2020.
  7. ^ Cheney, Kyle; Bertrand, Natasha (October 14, 2020). "Biden campaign lashes out at New York Post". Politico. Archived from the original on November 17, 2020. Retrieved October 17, 2020.
  8. ^ Ben Schreckinger (October 12, 2021). "'Hiding the Ball': Hunter Biden Complicates White House Anti-Corruption Push". Politico. Archived from the original on November 19, 2021. Retrieved May 2, 2022.
  9. ^ Goldman, Adam (October 22, 2020). "What We Know and Don't About Hunter Biden and a Laptop". The New York Times. Archived from the original on October 23, 2020. Retrieved December 12, 2022.
  10. ^ Benner, Katie; Vogel, Kenneth P.; Schmidt, Michael S. (March 16, 2022). "Hunter Biden Paid Tax Bill, but Broad Federal Investigation Continues". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Archived from the original on March 23, 2022. Retrieved March 31, 2022.
  11. ^ Robertson, Katie (October 18, 2020). "New York Post Published Hunter Biden Report Amid Newsroom Doubts". The New York Times. Archived from the original on October 18, 2020. Retrieved October 18, 2020.
  12. ^ Benveniste, Alexis (October 18, 2020). "The anatomy of the New York Post's dubious Hunter Biden story". CNN. Archived from the original on October 19, 2020. Retrieved October 19, 2020.
  13. ^ Bertrand, Natasha (October 19, 2020). "Hunter Biden story is Russian disinfo, dozens of former intel officials say". Politico. Archived from the original on October 20, 2020. Retrieved October 20, 2020.
  14. ^ Robertson, Adi (29 December 2020). "New York Post's Hunter Biden laptop source sues Twitter for defamation". The Verge. Retrieved 19 March 2023.
  15. ^ Hall, Madison (3 September 2021). "The computer repairman with Hunter Biden's laptop lost his lawsuit against Twitter and has to pay the company's legal fees". Insider. Retrieved 19 March 2023.
  16. ^ Kessler, Glenn (13 February 2023). "The Hunter Biden laptop and claims of 'Russian disinfo'". The Washington Post. Retrieved 19 March 2023.
  17. ^ Downey, Caroline (4 May 2022). "Hunter Biden Laptop Whistleblower Sues Schiff, CNN, the Daily Beast, Politico". National Review. Retrieved 19 March 2023.
  18. ^ a b Viser, Matt (17 March 2023). "Hunter Biden sues laptop repair shop owner, citing invasion of privacy". The Washington Post. Retrieved 19 March 2023.
  19. ^ Kates, Graham (17 March 2023). "Hunter Biden sues computer repairman for invasion of privacy over handling of laptop". CBS News. Retrieved 19 March 2023.
  20. ^ Robertson, Nick (June 14, 2024). "Hunter Biden dropping laptop lawsuit against Giuliani". The Hill. Retrieved June 17, 2024.

External links

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