Hunter Biden is suing the computer repair shop owner who said the president's son dropped off a laptop and never returned to claim it, The Washington Post reported.
The 42-page lawsuit, filed Friday in the United States District Court for the District of Delaware, escalates the fight over how controversial data and images of Biden were obtained almost five years ago.
Attorneys for Biden claim that John Paul Mac Isaac didn't have the legal right to distribute the information they maintain is private. They accuse him of six counts of invasion of privacy, including conspiracy to obtain and distribute the information, the Post said.
The data from the laptop is at the center of a congressional investigation of Biden.
"As a result of Mac Isaac's unlawful agreement and his conspiracy with others, Mr. Biden's personal data was made available to third parties and then ultimately to the public at large, which is highly offensive, causing harm to Mr. Biden and his reputation," the suit states. "The object of invading Mr. Biden's privacy and disseminating his data was not for any legitimate purpose but to cause harm and embarrassment to Mr. Biden."
Biden's court action is a response to a suit filed by Mac Isaac last year. That suit claimed Hunter Biden defamed him by contending he illegally took the data. Mac Isaac claimed the laptop had been abandoned at his shop.
Biden does not admit in his lawsuit that he dropped off the laptop, received an invoice or neglected to pick it up. Despite claims by Mac Isaac, the filing states, "Mr. Biden is without knowledge sufficient to admit or deny the allegations."
"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," the filing says. "Rather, Mr. Biden simply acknowledges that at some point, Mac Isaac obtained electronically stored data, some of which belonged to Mr. Biden."
In addition, Biden maintains that if Mac Isaac did have his unclaimed laptop, Delaware law would have restricted his ability to access or distribute the data on it, the Post said.
"And contrary to Mac Isaac's claim that property left in his shop is abandoned property after 90 days, he admits in his recently published book and in other media appearances that he actually began accessing what he claims he had in his possession as Mr. Biden's data long before 90 days had expired from when he claims any property or data was left in his shop," the suit states.
"Mr. Biden had more than a reasonable expectation of privacy that any data that he created or maintained, and especially that which was the most personal such as photographs, videos, interactions with other adults, and communications with his family, would not be accessed, copied, disseminated, or posted on the Internet for others to use against him or his family or for the public to view."
Biden's lawyers in February admitted that the infamous laptop indeed, belongs to him.
The attorneys made the acknowledgment in a letter asking the Department of Justice to investigate close allies of former President Donald Trump and others who accessed and disseminated personal data from the laptop, which Biden dropped off at the Wilmington computer repair shop in April 2019.
Mac Isaac admitted to reviewing private and sensitive material from Biden's laptop, including a file titled "income.pdf" and sending a copy of the data to Rudy Giuliani's lawyer, Robert Costello, who in turn shared it with Giuliani.
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