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Attorneys representing Hunter Biden filed his answer and counterclaims alleging invasion of privacy in response to a defamation lawsuit brought by the Delaware-based computer repairman who they say triggered the infamous laptop controversy in the weeks leading up to the 2020 presidential election.
The step represents a major escalation in the younger Biden’s increasingly aggressive legal posture toward some of his most vocal critics and those who allegedly trafficked his personal information.
The suit, filed in a Delaware federal court, targets John Paul Mac Isaac, a computer repairman who in April 2019 purportedly obtained and later disseminated data from a laptop allegedly belonging to the president’s son. The counterclaim is in response to a defamation lawsuit filed by Mac Isaac against Hunter Biden and others in October 2019, which is ongoing.
«[Hunter] Biden had more than a reasonable expectation of privacy that any data that he created or maintained … would not be accessed, copied, disseminated, or posted on the Internet for others to use against him or his family or for the public to view,» according to the countersuit.
Attorneys for Hunter Biden challenged Mac Isaac’s claim that the laptop and an external hard drive became his property when Hunter Biden failed to retrieve them within 90 days of leaving them at the repairman’s Wilmington, Delaware, shop for servicing, citing the fine print of a repair order allegedly signed by Hunter Biden at the time.
«Contrary to Mac Isaac’s Repair Authorization form, Delaware law provides that tangible personal property is deemed abandoned» when the rightful owner has failed to «assert or declare property rights to the property for a period of 1 year,» lawyers for Biden wrote in legal documents.
The counterclaim adds that «other obligations must then also be satisfied before obtaining lawful title, such as the court sending notice to the owner and the petitioner posting notice in five or more public places, and advertising the petition in a newspaper.
