Hunter Biden sues Rudy Giuliani over laptop, claiming 'total annihilation' of his 'digital privacy'

Hunter Biden has filed a lawsuit against former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani, alleging that he violated his rights by "disseminating" the content from the Biden son’s now-infamous laptop.

In the complaint filed Tuesday in the US District Court for the Central District of California, Biden alleges that Giuliani is "primarily responsible" for the "total annihilation" of his digital privacy.

The lawsuit alleges that the defendants violated the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, the California Computer Data Access and Fraud Act, and the California Business & Professions Code sections 17200.

The lawsuit also lists former federal prosecutor who previously represented Giuliani Robert Costello as a defendant, as well as companies the Giuliani Group and Security & Safety.

"For the past many months and even years, Defendants have dedicated an extraordinary amount of time and energy toward looking for, hacking into, tampering with, manipulating, copying, disseminating, and generally obsessing over data that they were given that was taken or stolen from Plaintiff's devices or storage platforms, including what Defendants claim to have obtained from Plaintiff's alleged ‘laptop’ computer," Hunter Biden’s attorneys wrote in the complaint.

They claimed that the data was not from a "laptop," but instead from an "external drive," and that the data obtained was "manipulated, altered and damaged before it was copied and sent to Defendants," which the defendants later further altered.

The lawsuit states that the defendants came into possession of the data after being approached by John Paul Mac Isaac, the owner of the Delaware computer repair shop where Hunter Biden dropped off his laptop in April of 2019, and never returned to reclaim it despite repeated attempts from Mac Isaac to contact him.

"Upon receiving this communication, Defendants arranged for Mac Isaac to mail a copy of the data that Mac Isaac claimed to have obtained from Plaintiff to them for the specific purpose of enabling them to access, tamper with, manipulate, alter, damage, and copy Plaintiff’s data," the lawsuit alleges.

Hunter Biden reportedly discovered facts concerning the activities through public statements made in 2022 and 2023 by the defendants, with the lawsuit noting one September 12, 2022 interview with Costello in which he described accessing the data.

"By booting up and logging into an 'external drive' containing Plaintiff’s data and using Plaintiff’s username to gain access Plaintiff’s data, Defendant Costello unlawfully accessed, tampered with and manipulated Plaintiff’s data in violation of federal and state law."

The defendants allegedly spent "months analyzing, tampering with, manipulating, and altering Plaintiff’s data, as well as copying Plaintiff’s data so that others could engage in these unlawful activities as well."

The lawsuit stated that "forensic experts who have examined for themselves copies of data purportedly obtained from Plaintiff’s 'laptop'" have found that "sloppy or intentional mishandling of the data damaged digital records, altered cryptographic features in the data, and reduced the forensic quality of data to 'garbage'"

Giuliani is accused of spending "many hours hacking into and manipulating data that he claims to have been obtained from Plaintiff, making copies of the data for himself and others to access and analyze, and further altering, impairing and damaging the data through his unlawful hacking and manipulation."

Noting public interviews, the lawsuit claims that Giuliani has admitted to and bragged about downloading the data, and "tampering" and "manipulating" the downloaded data.

"As further evidence of Defendants’ illegal hacking of Plaintiff’s data, it recently has come to light that Defendant Giuliani apparently worked directly with Steve Bannon and Vish Burra to access, manipulate, and copy Plaintiff’s 'laptop,’ which Burra has dubbed the 'Manhattan Project' because he and others “were essentially creating a nuclear political weapon,” referring to Burra’s work with Defendant Giuliani and others (Steve Bannon and Bernie Kerik) to manipulate the 'laptop,’" the lawsuit states.

The lawsuit states that the defendants are entitled to "their baseless opinions about Plaintiff and the Biden family," but added that "they are not entitled to violate federal and state anti-computer hacking laws to advance their personal and political agendas."

Hunter Biden is seeking a jury trial for the lawsuit, and is seeking as damages for the defendants to give up profits obtained as a result of obtaining the data, coverage of attorneys fees, and a permanent injuncture against the defendants and their employees against accessing the data.

Hunter Biden had threatened legal action against Giuliani in February, accusing him of trafficking the data from the laptop.

Giuliani turned over the laptop data to authorities in October of 2020.

The laptop, which has since been acknowledged as being real by mainstream media outlets, was first revealed by the New York Post in October of 2020 ahead of the 2020 election. The story subsequently faced months of censorship, with the New York Post temporarily losing social media accounts because these platforms believed the materials to be "hacked materials."

Hunter Biden v. Rudy Giuliani by Hannah Nightingale on Scribd