President Joe Biden’s son on March 17 sued a laptop repairman for allegedly invading his privacy.
Hunter Biden countersued John Paul Mac Isaac, who owned a computer store in Delaware at which Hunter Biden was said to have dropped off his computer years ago.
Mac Isaac’s sharing of information from Hunter Biden constitutes invasion of privacy, the 42-page filing states.
“No matter how they came into his initial possession, Mac Isaac improperly accessed files that he admits were ‘none of [his] business’ even though he was never given permission by Mr. Biden to access or review any data of Mr. Biden’s,” it says. He later made copies of the data and distributed the copies to others, including former President Donald Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani.
“Mac Isaac’s knowing and intentional distribution of Mr. Biden’s personal and sensitive data was not carried out for any reasonable or legitimate purposes, but rather to try and expose Mr. Biden’s data to those that he knew or should have known would intend to create embarrassment and harm for Mr. Biden,” the countersuit says.
“In addition, Mac Isaac decided to use the data in his possession for commercial purposes and to make money, which he has done by including portions of the data in his book and making reference to and/or making some or all of the data available at appearances he has made.”
The filing, lodged in U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware, asks for a jury trial.
Mac Isaac’s lawyer did not respond to requests for comment.
Original Suit
Mac Isaac in 2022 sued Hunter Biden, Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), and news outlets for alleged defamation.
Mac Isaac said he was defamed by statements about himself and how he handled a computer he says was dropped off by Hunter Biden.
Hunter Biden committed defamation, according to the suit, when he said in a televised interview: “There could be a laptop out there that was stolen from me. It could be that I was hacked. It could be that it was the—that it was Russian intelligence. It could be that it was stolen from me. Or that there was a laptop stolen from me.”
The filing includes an email from Hunter Biden’s attorney George Mesires to Mac Isaac’s repair shop. “Thank you for speaking with me tonight. As I indicated, I am a lawyer for Hunter Biden and I appreciate you reviewing your records on this matter,” Mesires wrote.
“Hunter knew it was his laptop,” the suit states.
Mac Isaac dropped the Daily Beast from the case after it apologized to him and corrected some of the claims it had made.
Hunter Biden Response
Hunter Biden admitted Mesires was his lawyer. He said in the new filing he was “without knowledge sufficient to admit or deny the allegations” that he knew the computer was his, but denied knowingly offering defamatory information.
According to a document Mac Isaac has filed in court, Hunter Biden on April 12, 2019, asked for a quote for data recovery from three MacBook computers. Mac Isaac recovered the data and notified Hunter Biden of the development. He also sent an invoice. But Hunter Biden “never returned” to the shop to retrieve the data nor did he pay the invoice, according to the suit.
Hunter Biden’s attorneys confirm that Mac Isaac has come into possession of materials from Hunter Biden.
“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. Rather, Mr. Biden simply acknowledges that at some point, Mac Isaac obtained electronically stored data, some of which belonged to Mr. Biden,” the new countersuit states.
They noted that Mac Isaac initially said he didn’t get a clear look at the person who dropped off the computer but later claimed he was “100 percent sure” it was Hunter Biden.
