https://nypost.com/2024/05/22/us-news/hunter-bidens-infamous-laptop-which-the-post-exposed-and-he-denied-will-be-used-as-evidence-in-his-gun-case/
Hunter Bidenโs infamous laptop โ which The Post exposed and he denied โ will be used as evidence in gun case
So much for having โall the hallmarksโ of Russian disinformation. So much for โit could be that I was hacked.โ
Almost four full years after Big Tech suppressed The Postโs bombshell reporting on Hunter Bidenโs abandoned โlaptop from hellโ with its evidence of influence-peddling, drug use, and other lurid activity, the device will take center stage in the first sonโs federal trial on gun charges next month.
Special counsel David Weissโ team made clear that it intends to use data from the notorious hard drive as evidence against the now-54-year-old.
โThe defendantโs laptop is real (it will be introduced as a trial exhibit) and it contains significant evidence of the defendantโs guilt,โ prosecutor Derek Hines wrote in a scathing filing Wednesday.
Hines underscored that the laptop data the special counsel will reference is โself-authenticatingโ and will be โintroduced with corroborating evidence at trial.โ
He also noted that prosecutors plan to use information from Hunter Bidenโs iCloud data that came from โtwo separate and independent sourcesโ โ his iPad and iPhone XR.
Prosecutors are planning to use that data in their pursuit of three charges against Hunter Biden related to illegal possession of a firearm while addicted to illicit drugs. He has pleaded not guilty
Hunter Biden has tried to cast aspersions on the authenticity of the laptop, which he dropped off at a Delaware repair shop in April 2019.
Store proprietor John Paul Mac Isaac took possession of the laptop and hard drive after trying and failing for months to notify Hunter that the device was ready to be picked up.
Once Mac Isaac saw the laptopโs contents โ including emails detailing shady business deals involving then-Vice President Joe Biden other first family members and videos of Hunter Biden smoking crack and having sex with prostitutes and his work subordinates โ he alerted the FBI.
The feds picked up the laptop in December 2019, but not before Mac Isaac made a copy which he gave to Robert Costello, then Rudolph Giulianiโs personal lawyer, in August 2020.
Giuliani provided The Post with a copy of the hard drive that October, with the first in a series of reports on its contents published Oct. 14.
Facebook and Twitter (now X) quickly moved to throttle sharing of the story, with Twitter even suspending The Postโs account.
That same week, 51 former intelligence officials signed a letter โ possibly at the behest of Joe Bidenโs presidential campaign โ claiming that the laptop story โhas all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation.โ
However, The Postโs initial reporting has been belatedly confirmed by outlets including the Washington Post, New York Times and CBS News.
Two IRS whistleblowers confirmed last year that the FBI had verified the authenticity of the abandoned laptop in November 2019 โ 11 months before The Post broke the story.
Despite that, Hunter testified before the House GOP impeachment probe this past February and claimed there were reports on his laptop that were either โfabricated, hacked, stolen, or manipulated 100%.โ
Hines demanded that trial judge Maryellen Noreika bar Biden from โsuggesting that the electronic evidence is fabricated, manipulated, altered, or inauthentic because he has not offered any evidence supporting such a claim.โ
โ[T]he defendantโs theory about the laptop is a conspiracy theory with no supporting evidence,โ said Hines, who noted that Hunterโs argument includes a claim โthat a Russian businessman told a third-party that Bidenโs devices were compromised โฆ during his 2014 trip to Kazakhstan.
โThis is yet another example of the defendant asking people to believe Russian intelligence when it suits his interests, but not to believe Russian intelligence when it doesnโt suit his interests,โ the prosecutor wrote. โNone of this hearsay on hearsay is evidence, and none of it demonstrates that the actual trial evidence was altered. Any questioning suggesting this would be without a foundation.โ
Further, Hines went on, Hunter โhas had the laptop data in its raw, original form since September 2023, but has provided the government with no evidence of its manipulation or alteration. He has not provided any evidence or information that shows that his laptop contains false information, and the governmentโs evidence shows the opposite.โ
The Delaware trial is set to begin June 3 in Wilmington federal court.
Meanwhile, Hunter is facing another nine-count indictment out of Los Angeles for allegedly bilking Uncle Sam out of $1.4 million worth of federal income taxes between 2016 and 2019.
That trial is now slated to commence in Sept. 5, per a court order issued Wednesday.