Hunter Biden laptop repairman John Paul Mac Isaac’s home ‘swatted,’ amid surge in political targets
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Computer repairman John Paul Mac Isaac, to whom the president’s son Hunter Biden gave his infamous laptop, claimed that his house was “swatted” on Friday.
“My home was swatted tonight,” he posted on X on Dec. 29. “I was not home but the outstanding men and women of the Wilmington (Police Department) responded quickly and professionally. All that was achieved was the wasted time of the Wilmington PD.” The police have yet to confirm the incident to media outlets.
What is ‘swatting’?
Swatting is the act of making an illegal, hoax emergency call to prompt the police, specifically the SWAT team, to show up at a specific address. The caller may report a serious crime, like a home invasion, a shooting, or a hostage situation. To convince the authorities of such an emergency, they can deploy a fake caller ID or a call spoofing software to conceal their location
“NOTHING, let me repeat that, NOTHING will take me out of this fight!” Mac Isaac added. The computer repair shop owner claimed that he had legal access to the hard drive of Hunter Biden’s laptop after Biden failed to pick it up from the store within 90 days. Mac Isaac sued Hunter Biden for defamation in 2022. Biden filed a countersuit in March alleging invasion of privacy, as the Deseret News previously reported.
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Several politicians targeted by swatting
Mac Isaac isn’t the only victim of a terror-filled holiday season that has targeted those in the political spheres. On Christmas Day, a caller claimed there was a shooting in hopes of directing the SWAT team to Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s home in Rome, Georgia.
“I was just swatted. This is like the 8th time. On Christmas with my family here. My local police are the GREATEST and shouldn’t have to deal with this,” Greene wrote in a post on X.
The Rome Police Department verified the fake call, according to The Associated Press.
These fake calls have not discriminated based on political party. The same day, Greene’s home was swatted, fake calls diverted the police to the homes of Boston Mayor Michelle Wu, a Democrat, and Rep. Brandon Williams, a Republican from Upstate New York.
These calls continued three days later with Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., and Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows, a Democrat, targeted.
Scott claimed on X that his home in Naples, Florida, was swatted while he was at dinner with his wife.
“These criminals wasted the time & resources of our law enforcement in a sick attempt to terrorize my family,” Scott wrote.
Meanwhile, Bellows, who was swatted a day after she blocked former President Donald Trump from the ballot in Maine, which drew an outcry from Republicans, noted, “Swatting incidents have resulted in casualties although thankfully this one did not,” before calling it “unacceptable.”
“Swatting” has gotten dangerous
In 2015, an Oklahoma police chief was shot during the raid of man’s home who supposedly called the police to say he set a bomb at a preschool. A later investigation revealed the call was a fake. The chief survived his injuries.
In 2017, another swatting-led casualty occurred in Kansas. A police officer fatally shot a man while responding to a fake emergency call.
Although swatting originates from prank calls to emergency services, it has become more dangerous for the first responders and the victims.
The FBI first acknowledged the phenomenon in 2008. Since then, the federal agency has expanded its resources to address swatting: Last year, the FBI said it created a national online database of swatting incidents and shared it with hundreds of police departments and law enforcement agencies.
The database will give the federal agency “a common operating picture of what’s going on across the country,” said FBI Chief Scott Schubert, who works with the bureau’s Criminal Justice Information Services headquarters in Clarksburg, West Virginia, according to NBC News.
He added, “We’re taking every step to monitor this national problem and help however we can.”
