Hunter Biden to be deposed in laptop lawsuit
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Hunter Biden is expected to be deposed Thursday as part of the civil lawsuit brought by Delaware computer repair shop owner John Paul Mac Isaac, Fox News has learned.
Mac Isaac filed a lawsuit against Biden in October 2022 in Delaware for defamation. In March, Biden filed a countersuit alleging Mac Isaac illicitly distributed Biden's personal data, and accused him of six counts of invasion of privacy.
In 2020, Mac Isaac said that a man he believed to be Biden had dropped off three laptops at his store in April 2019, only one of which was salvageable. While repairing that laptop, Mac Isaac said, he discovered disturbing material.
The customer did not return for the laptop within 90 days, and Mac Isaac could not get in touch with him. Mac Isaac said he first searched the emails by keyword in June or July 2019.
John Paul Mac Isaac's book "American Injustice: My Battle to Expose the Truth" was released in November. (Fox News Digital)
According to Mac Isaac’s account, the FBI first made a forensic copy of the laptop and then returned weeks later with a subpoena and confiscated it.
Mac Isaac was subpoenaed in December 2019 to testify before the U.S. District Court in Delaware.
The FBI's property receipt for the laptop, first obtained by Fox News Digital in 2020, had a "Case ID" section, which was filled in with a handwritten number: 272D-BA-3065729.
The number "272" is the FBI's classification for money laundering, while "272D" refers to "Money Laundering, Unknown SUA [Specified Unlawful Activity]—White Collar Crime Program," according to FBI documents. One government official described "272D" as "transnational or blanket."
Biden's expected deposition comes just days after the Department of Justice announced that he would enter a plea agreement stemming from U.S. attorney for Delaware David Weiss’ years-long investigation into his tax affairs.
Hunter Biden arrives with wife, Melissa Cohen Biden, prior to President Biden awarding Presidential Medals of Freedom during a ceremony in the East Room of the White House in Washington, D.C., on July 7, 2022. (Kevin Lamarque/Reuters)
Biden will plead guilty to two misdemeanor counts of willful failure to pay federal income tax as part of a deal that is expected to keep him out of prison. The president's son also agreed to enter into a pretrial diversion agreement with regard to a separate charge of possession of a firearm by a person who is an unlawful user of or addicted to a controlled substance. The plea agreement is expected to keep Biden out of prison.
Biden is expected to make his first court appearance on July 26.
Meanwhile, as for the laptop, an IRS whistleblower who testified before the House Ways and Means Committee said federal investigators knew in December 2019 that Biden’s laptop was "not manipulated in any way" and contained "reliable evidence," but were "obstructed" from seeing all available information — nearly a year before former intelligence officials and Joe Biden himself declared the laptop was part of a Russian disinformation campaign.
President Biden is comforted by his son Hunter Biden and first lady Jill Biden after being sworn in during the 59th presidential inauguration on the West Front of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., on Jan. 20, 2021. (KEVIN DIETSCH/POOL/AFP via Getty Images)
The whistleblower, Gary Shapley Jr., who was the supervisor of the investigation at the IRS, said that "at every stage" of the Biden probe, decisions were made that "had the effect of benefiting the subject of the investigation."
Shapley testified that the investigation, codenamed "Sportsman," was opened in November 2018 as an "offshoot" of an IRS investigation into a "foreign-based amateur online pornography platform." Testimony released by the committee did not include any further explanation of how the pornography outlet and Biden were linked.
The investigation had previously been believed to have been predicated, in part, by suspicious foreign transactions.
Nearly a year later, in October 2019, Shapely said the "FBI became aware that a repair shop had a laptop allegedly belonging to Hunter Biden and that the laptop might contain evidence of a crime."
"The FBI verified its authenticity in November of 2019 by matching the device number against Hunter Biden's Apple iCloud ID," Shapely said. "When the FBI took possession of the device in December 2019, they notified the IRS that it likely contained evidence of tax crimes."
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