WASHINGTON (AP) — Lawyers for President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter, have asked the Justice Department to investigate close allies of former President Donald Trump and others who they say accessed and disseminated personal data from a laptop that he dropped off at a Delaware computer repair shop in 2019.
In a separate letter, Biden’s attorneys have also asked Fox News host Tucker Carlson to retract and apologize for what they say are false and defamatory claims made repeatedly about him on-air, including implying without evidence that he had unauthorized access to classified documents found at his father’s home.
The request for a criminal inquiry, which comes as Hunter Biden faces his own tax evasion investigation by the Justice Department, has no practical impact and does not commit federal prosecutors to take any 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 conservative media, scrutiny expected to continue now that the GOP has taken over the House.
Related Story: Hunter Biden finally admits infamous laptop is his as he pleads for criminal probe
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 his 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 received Biden’s laptop in April 2019.
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, Trump’s close ally, 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 any of his personal information being 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, adding, “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.”
Related Story: New tactic – Hunter Biden is the ‘laptop from hell’ victim
Mac Isaac declined to comment when reached by The Associated Press on Wednesday evening. Costello, asked to comment on behalf of him and Giuliani, said he had not yet seen a copy of the letter but said it sounded “preposterous.” 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 was addressed to its top national security official, Matthew Olsen. It 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.
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 calls seeking comment.
Associated Press writer David Bauder in New York contributed to this report.
Copyright 2023 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.
—-
This content is published through a licensing agreement with Acquire Media using its NewsEdge technology.
This is a typical and widely used tactic by the Democrat Party to try and distract attention from their Lies, Crimes and treasonous actions.
The corrupt, treasonous Democrat elite and the Democrat Party never take responsibility or are held accountable for their own treasonous, unlawful, destructive, dishonorable, immoral, Lies, actions and agendas. Democrats always Lie and blame someone or something else for their own actions and policies. Even if the Democrats are caught “red handed”.
Question is – Why is the Democrat Party’s elite permitted to commit crimes and treason that others go to jail for?
BECAUSE they control the dept of injustice.. That’s why!
When you have no defense, you have to go on the offensive
Really rich coming from the folks, who for 10 months, when it was first discovered, tried to tell us the whole Hunter Biden laptop story was a Russian Hack and Leak operation. Now they want a probe into Trump allies disseminating this Russian “Hack & Leak” info? Really? Who are you kidding?
This cat’s out of the bag and it’s gonna be mighty hard to stuff him back in. Then again, I know the Biden Crime Family’s buddies at the Department of Injustice will try their damndest to do it.
Here’s hoping this latest charade falls flat on it’s ugly face!
WE all knew this was a falsehood, they were pushing. PITY NOT a damn thing, will be done to a single one of those 51 intelligence officials… OR piles of Offals!
I think, when you abandon your property, it is no longer yours.
Yes, I think, in most jurisdictions, here in the United States, if property is abandoned for 90 days or more, it ceases to no longer be yours.
Now, if the computer repairman viewed classified docs, that could present a problem for him, potentially, but to his credit, he did turn it over to the FBI once he realized what he had.
That’s how squatter rights work in some states.
That’s how you do it—investigate the people concerned about a scandal—not the people actually involved in the scandal.
You can do this kind of thing when you got the justice department in your back pocket. If you’re a conservative concerned about government corruption you can forget about getting any help from the FBI. In fact, you might just find yourself being investigated and like the people at the Capitol on 1/6 charged with the bogus crime of insurrection. Welcome to justice in third world country.
Which is why every damn one of these agencies, NEEDS TO GET shut the hell down.
Just another investigation what else can the DOJ do but work for the democrats. It would be nice to do there job.