Hunter Biden has asked state and federal officials to launch investigations into leading conservative figures who helped spread claims based on private information discovered on a laptop he allegedly dropped off at a Delaware repair shop.
In a series of letters to the Justice Department, the Delaware attorney general’s office, the IRS, and others, the president’s son called for probes of individuals like former New York mayor and Trump ally Rudy Giuliani, as well as conservative agitator Steve Bannon, for their role in spreading the laptop story, which was seized upon by political opponents of the president.
Ted Goodman, an advisor for Mr Giuliani, said the laptop became “abandoned property” when Mr Biden reportedly left it at the repair shop.
“Raising concerns now, after so many years, indicates just how devastating the texts and videos from Hunter’s laptop truly are,” he wrote in a statement via email to The Independent. “The laptop reveals 30-years of corruption by the Biden crime family, headed by the boss—Joe Biden.”
Raising concerns now, after so many years, indicates just how devastating the texts and videos from Hunter’s laptop truly are. The laptop reveals 30-years of corruption by the Biden crime family, headed by the boss—Joe Biden.
The Independent has contacted Mr Bannon for comment.
“This failed dirty political trick directly resulted in the exposure, exploitation, and manipulation of Mr. Biden’s private and personal information,” one letter reads, the Associated Press reports. “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.”
Mr Giuliani was sent a copy of the hard drive, which he shared with the media, according to his attorneys.
Mr Biden also threated to sue Fox News host Tucker Carlson for defamation in relation to claims made on air about the laptop.
The Independent has contacted Fox News for comment.
Claims about the laptop began spreading in fall of 2020 as the presidential election neared its conclusion, following a report from the New York Post on the computer’s contents.
The contents of the laptop included messages detailing Hunter Biden’s overseas business activities and explicit photos.
“There could be a laptop out there that was stolen from me,” Hunter Biden told CBS News in 2021. “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.”
Of particular interest was an email from Vadym Pozharskyi, a Ukrainian gas executive who allegedly wrote to Hunter Biden in 2015 and thanked him for the “opportunity to meet your father.”
Joe Biden, who was vice-president at the time of the alleged meeting, has said official schedules at the time showed no meeting with Mr Pozharskyi. Mr Biden has also said he has “never spoken” with his son about his overseas work.
Donald Trump’s attempts to link the Bidens and the laptops to politics in Ukraine helped cause his first impeachment trial, over threats to withold Ukrainian military aid until officials in that country launched an investigation into Joe Biden.
The laptop generated controversy beyond just Washington, starting a heated discussion on the limits of tech and free speech, after Twitter restricted the spread of the Post’s laptop story.
And the afterlife of the laptop seems far from over even in 2023.
The newly Republican-controlled House of Representatives has suggested investigations of Hunter Biden could be on the way.
