Hunter Biden asks for criminal probe into how his laptop contents were released

A lawyer for President Joe Biden's son, Hunter, asked the Justice Department in a letter Wednesday to investigate close allies of former president Donald Trump and others who accessed and disseminated personal data from a laptop that a computer repair shop owner says was dropped off at his Delaware store in 2019.

The request for a criminal inquiry, which comes as Hunter Biden faces a tax evasion investigation by the Justice Department, does not mean federal prosecutors will open a probe or take any other action. But it nonetheless represents a concerted shift in strategy and a rare public response by the younger Biden and his legal team to years of attacks by Republican officials and right-wing media.

It also represents the latest salvo in the long-running laptop saga, which began with a New York Post story in October 2020 that detailed some of the emails it says were found on the device related to Hunter Biden's foreign business dealings. It was swiftly seized on by Trump as a campaign issue during the presidential election that year.

The letter, signed by prominent Washington attorney Abbe Lowell, seeks an investigation into, among others, former Trump strategist Steve Bannon, Trump's longtime lawyer Rudy Giuliani, Giuliani's own attorney and the Wilmington computer repair shop owner, John Paul Mac Isaac, who has said Hunter Biden dropped a laptop off at his store in April 2019 and never returned to pick it up.

The letter cites passages from Mac Isaac's book, in which he admitted reviewing private and sensitive material from Biden's laptop, including a file titled "income.pdf." It notes that Mac Isaac sent a copy of the laptop data to Giuliani's lawyer, Robert Costello, who in turn shared it with Giuliani, a close ally of Trump's who at the time was pushing discredited theories about the younger Biden.

Giuliani provided the information to a reporter at the New York Post, which first wrote about the laptop, and also to Bannon, according to the letter. Hunter Biden never consented to having any of his personal information accessed or shared in that manner, his lawyer says.

"This failed dirty political trick directly resulted in the exposure, exploitation and manipulation of Mr. Biden's private and personal information," the letter says. "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."

Request 'reeks of desperation': Giuliani lawyer

Mac Isaac declined to comment when reached by The Associated Press on Wednesday evening. Costello, asked to comment on behalf of him and Giuliani, called the letter "a frivolous legal document" and said it "reeks of desperation because they know judgment day is coming for the Bidens."

A lawyer who represented Bannon at a trial in Washington, D.C., last year did not immediately return a call seeking comment. A Fox News representative had no immediate comment.

The letter to the Justice Department cites possible violations of statutes prohibiting the unauthorized access of a computer or stored electronic communication, as well as the transport of stolen data across state lines and the publication of restricted personal data with the intent to intimidate or threaten.

It also asks prosecutors to investigate whether any of the data was manipulated or tampered with in any way.

Front Burner27:59The sordid saga of Hunter Biden’s laptop

You’ve probably heard about Hunter Biden’s laptop. The laptop and the trove of data on it belonging to U.S. President Joe Biden’s youngest son first surfaced publicly just weeks before the 2020 presidential election. At the time, it was largely discredited as foreign meddling and a disinformation campaign intended to sway the presidential race. Since then, several media outlets have verified that at least some of the data on the laptop is real. Meanwhile, the laptop has taken on a life of its own. Depending who you ask, it's either a distraction, or the key to unlocking untold stories of political corruption and shady dealings overseas. New York Magazine journalists Olivia Nuzzi and Andrew Rice spent six-months looking into the laptop: what’s on it, the cast of characters responsible for its public release, and the legal investigations that have followed. Today, Andrew Rice joins us to share what they found.

A Justice Department spokesperson declined to comment.

Separate letters requesting investigations were also sent to the Delaware state attorney general's office and to the Internal Revenue Service. Spokespeople there did not immediately return emails seeking comment.

Hunter Biden, who turns 53 later this week, delivered the laptop at a time when he was struggling with substance abuse, which he later wrote about in the 2021 memoir Beautiful Things.

Twitter handling of laptop story goes before committee

Scrutiny of Hunter Biden is expected to continue now that Republicans have taken over the House.

Former Twitter employees are expected to testify next week before the House's oversight committee about the social media platform's handling of reporting on the laptop. Twitter initially blocked the New York Post article from its site.

Republicans have said the story was suppressed for political reasons ahead of the 2020 election, though no evidence has been released to support that claim. The story was accessible on other social media platforms.

Jack Dorsey, Twitter CEO at the time, later characterized the blocking of the article's URL with "zero context" around why the decision was made as "unacceptable."

In addition to the laptop contents, Republicans have raised questions about Hunter Biden's work for a Ukrainian energy company and business dealings with China while his father was in a position of influence.

More recently, as Joe Biden's properties have been searched for classified documents, some Republican members of Congress have questioned whether Hunter had access to any of them, pointing out the Wilmington, Del., house was listed as Hunter Biden's address on his driver's licence as recently as 2018.