Hunter Biden fights back over scandal threatening his father United States
Hunter Biden demanded criminal investigations into Donald Trump’s allies for sharing data from his laptop.
President Joe Biden’s son launched the counteroffensive before an inquiry into his business dealings by Republicans in Congress.
In a flurry of letters to state and federal prosecutors, lawyers representing Hunter Biden, 52, called for a criminal probe into personal data found on the laptop he left at a Delaware repair shop in 2019 and which was shared by Republican operatives before the 2020 election.
His legal team want investigations into the role of Steve Bannon, the commentator and former White House adviser, and Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s former lawyer.
They received the material recovered from the laptop from John Paul Mac Isaac, the repair shop owner, and assisted with early reports on its contents.
Hunter Biden’s lawyers said Bannon and Giuliani had ‘‘violated various federal laws in accessing, copying, manipulating, and/or disseminating Mr Biden’s personal computer data’’. The letters also accuse Mac Isaac, 45, of accessing Biden’s personal data without consent and distributing copies to ‘‘political enemies’’ of his father, then the Democratic challenger to Trump.
‘‘This failed dirty political trick directly resulted in the exposure, exploitation, and manipulation of Mr Biden’s private and personal information,’’ Abbe Lowell, his lawyer, wrote.
The letters mark the first time Hunter Biden’s legal team has acknowledged that the information on the laptop belonged to the president’s son. It also signals an aggressive strategy from his advisers as Republicans in Congress prepare to make emails on the laptop central to their claim that he used his connections to win business deals. They also say Joe Biden’s alleged role in helping his son do business in China and Ukraine means the president is compromised by foreign powers.
The scandals surrounding
Hunter Biden, including addiction to alcohol and crack cocaine and an affair with his brother’s widow, have dogged the president since he entered the White House. The laptop has become a trove of scurrilous personal and financial information since it emerged.
Dozens of homemade videos showed Biden having sex with prostitutes and his search history revealed a fixation with pornography.