Hunter Biden sues laptop repair shop owner for exposing his personal life in an 'egregious violation' of his privacy

Hunter Biden sued a Delaware laptop repair shop owner over distributing his data to the public.
Biden claims that the owner violated his privacy rights by exposing his personal life.
The New York Post first reported on Biden's laptop weeks before the 2020 election.

Hunter Biden has sued a Delaware computer repair shop owner who he claims violated his privacy rights by disseminating data from his laptop to the public, the latest action in a saga that first erupted in the final weeks of the 2020 election.

In a counterclaim filed on Friday in federal district court in Delaware, Biden and his lawyers accuse John Paul Mac Isaac of six counts of invasion of privacy, including intruding on, wrongfully sharing, and conspiring to publish Biden's laptop data.

"Mac Isaac knew or should have known that the data he possessed and shared contained private and confidential information and content, including sensitive and private photographs and video of Mr. Biden, and that Mr. Biden had a reasonable expectation of privacy in this data," the counterclaim alleges, "and that Mac Isaac's conduct would expose Mr. Biden's personal life in an egregious violation of Mr. Biden's right to privacy."

"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," the claim continues.

The claim responds to Mac Isaac's original lawsuit filed against Biden, CNN, Politico and Rep. Adam Schiff, alleging each of them had knowingly spread false and defamatory statements about the shop owner and where the laptop data came from.

In his suit, Mac Isaac claimed that Biden never returned to the shop to retrieve the data from his damaged electronics in April 2019, and after 90 days, the laptop was deemed abandoned, according to his shop's authorization form.

Pointing to Delaware law, Biden rejected in his countersuit that Mac Isaac was the rightful owner of his laptop data, claiming the shop owner took and distributed his data without his permission, including sending copies to Mac Isaac's father, his uncle, and Robert Costello, an attorney for Rudy Giuliani, who was then-President Donald Trump's personal lawyer. Costello then shared the data with Giuliani, who gave it to a reporter with the New York Post, which ran the October 2020 story about Biden's laptop.

Biden also alleges in his suit that Giuliani shared the data with former Trump White House advisor Steve Bannon, who's claimed to possess it, and also appeared to share it with his associate, Chinese billionaire Miles Guo, who was arrested earlier this week in a separate fraud scheme estimated at over $1 billion.

Biden is requesting compensatory and punitive damages for Mac Isaac's "willful, wanton, and reckless conduct" and the return of any copies of his data to him. Biden's lawyers are also seeking depositions from Giuliani, Bannon, and others alleged to possess copies of his laptop data.

The New York Post story, published three weeks before the presidential election, sparked widespread controversy over whether it belonged to Biden and the political motivations behind its release. Several rumors circulated that the laptop was part of a Russian disinformation operation, and Trump and his allies accused then-Democratic nominee Joe Biden of corruption based on emails allegedly exchanged between him and his son.

Meanwhile, the US attorney in Delaware is reportedly reviewing whether to charge Hunter Biden for financial crimes, and the GOP-led House Oversight Committee has launched an investigation into his foreign business deals.

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Contributer : Business Insider https://ift.tt/Bd4Xv9O

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