Judge rejects computer repairman’s defamation claims over reports on Hunter Biden laptop

DOVER, Del. (AP) — A computer repairman at the center of a controversy over Hunter Biden’s laptop has lost his defamation case against news outlets, the president’s son and Joe Biden’s presidential campaign.

A Delaware judge on Monday also dismissed Hunter Biden’s claims accusing Wilmington computer shop owner John Paul Mac Isaac of invasion of privacy.

Mac Isaac alleged that he was defamed by media reports and statements from Hunter Biden and his father’s presidential campaign implying that the laptop left at his shop in April 2019 was part of a Russian disinformation campaign and that the computer and data it contained may have been stolen.

The laptop surfaced publicly in October 2020 when The New York Post reported on emails it contained regarding Hunter Biden’s business dealings in Ukraine, where the Obama administration’s foreign policy efforts had been led by his father. In response, 51 former intelligence officials signed a public statement asserting that the laptop story had “all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation,” an assertion that proved to be false.

In a 2021 television interview, Hunter Biden said the laptop could have been stolen from him or hacked, or that Russian intelligence was involved.

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Mac Isaac said he was defamed by suggestions that he was a thief, a hacker or involved in a Russian plot.

Hunter Biden’s attorneys argued that his comments were opinion, did not mention Isaac by name and therefore could not be defamatory. Superior Court Judge Robert Robinson Jr. agreed.

Ronald Poliquin, an attorney for Mac Isaac, told The Associated Press that he plans to appeal.

“Hunter Biden went on national TV and gaslighted the American public by indicating John Paul Mac Isaac was part of a Russian hoax when he knew it to be false,” Poliquin said in an email. “As the FBI has confirmed, Biden dropped off his laptop at the Mac Shop. Hunter Biden lied and needs to be held accountable.”

Robinson also dismissed Mac Isaac’s defamation claims against CNN and Politico over their reporting on the laptop, as well as claims against Joe Biden’s campaign committee for saying the laptop contents were Russian disinformation.

The judge also said Hunter Biden’s counterclaims against Mac Isaac for invasion of privacy must be dismissed because he waited too long to file them.