Hunter Biden sues Rudy Giuliani over his controversial laptop
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Mention of Hunter Biden’s laptop first surfaced in a New York Post story that was published right before the 2020 presidential election. Rudy Giuliani, former President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer at the time, gave it to the Post after getting it indirectly from the owner of a computer repair store.
Biden filed a lawsuit Tuesday against Giuliani, claiming that he is responsible for “the total annihilation” of Biden’s digital privacy and data.
The suit alleges that Giuliani and his attorney Robert Costello spent time “looking for, hacking into, tampering with, manipulating, copying, disseminating, and generally obsessing over data” that was in the controversial laptop, which contained Biden’s private emails, documents and photos.
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‘Project Manhattan’ sought to alter data found in laptop, lawsuit says
The lawsuit claims the laptop’s contents were manipulated and altered before Giuliani and Costello acquired it, and that they further damaged the data to an extent that is unknown to Biden.
The suit also alleges that Giuliani worked directly with Steve Bannon, the former White House chief strategist, and Vish Burra, a Republican operative, “to access, manipulate, and copy (Hunter Biden) ‘laptop,’ which Burra has dubbed the ‘Manhattan Project’ because he and others ‘were essentially creating a nuclear political weapon.’”
His lawyers allege that Giuliani and Costello violated the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act and California’s Computer Data Access and Fraud Act, both of which penalize someone for accessing a computer without proper authorization.
Biden has asked Giuliani and Costello to return any data in their possession but they have not complied with his request, according to the filing.
In a statement to Politico, Giuliani’s spokesperson, Ted Goodman, said Giuliani did not alter data found on the laptop.
“Hunter Biden has previously refused to admit ownership of the laptop,” he said. “I’m not surprised he’s now falsely claiming his laptop hard drive was manipulated by Mayor Giuliani, considering the sordid material and potential evidence of crimes on that thing.”
Giuliani struggles to pay unpaid lawyers' fees
This lawsuit comes at a time when Giuliani’s legal problems are piling up. Last week, Costello’s law firm, Davidoff Hutcher & Citron, sued Giuliani for $1.4 million in unpaid legal fees since November 2019. This includes the time during which Giuliani represented Trump amid his efforts to overturn the 2020 election and during the congressional inquiries into the attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, as Reuters reported.
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Giuliani is also facing 13 racketeering and conspiracy charges in Georgia. He is one of 18 co-defendants, including Trump, and has pled not guilty. Earlier in May, a former associate sued him for sexual assault and is seeking $10 million.
Hunter Biden’s lawyers on offense
Meanwhile, Biden is also under heightened scrutiny over his alleged criminal activity and over whether his father, President Joe Biden, was involved in his foreign consulting business.
He is facing three felony charges filed by federal prosecutors as well as a congressional investigation into his and his family’s business dealings, which has paved the way for a GOP-led impeachment inquiry into President Biden, as the Deseret News reported.
His lawyers have also served a few lawsuits. Apart from suing Giuliani, his lawyers have filed a suit against the Internal Revenue Service.
They are also pursuing a case against the owner of the Delaware computer repair shop, who gave the laptop to the federal authorities and sent Giuliani a copy, too.
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