Global Courant
The lawsuit accuses Giuliani and lawyer Robert Costello of seeking “total destruction” of the digital privacy of the US president’s son.
US President Joe Biden’s son Hunter has sued Rudy Giuliani and another lawyer, alleging the pair wrongfully accessed and shared his personal information after obtaining it from the owner of a computer repair shop in the US state of Delaware.
Tuesday’s lawsuit is the latest in a new strategy by Hunter to hit back against former President Donald Trump’s Republican allies, who traded and passed on his private information — including alleged emails and embarrassing images — in their effort to put his father in prison. to discredit.
The lawsuit accuses Giuliani and attorney Robert Costello of spending years “hacking, tampering with, manipulating, copying, distributing and generally obsessing over” the data that was “taken or stolen” from Hunter’s devices or storage.
The campaign led to the “total destruction” of his digital privacy, the claim alleges.
The lawsuit also alleges that the younger Biden’s data was “tampered, altered and corrupted” before it was sent to Giuliani and Costello, and has since been further altered.
They violated laws against computer hacking when they did so, according to the lawsuit, which seeks unspecified damages and a court order to return the data and stop making copies.
Costello represented Giuliani but recently filed a lawsuit against the former New York City mayor, saying he failed to pay more than $1.3 million in legal bills.
A spokesperson for Giuliani did not immediately return a message from The Associated Press (AP) seeking comment Tuesday morning. Costello declined to comment to the news agency.
In February, he told AP that a letter from Hunter’s lawyers requesting a Justice Department investigation into him and others regarding the laptop was a “frivolous legal document” that “smacks of desperation because they know that judgment day for the Bidens is coming.”
Tuesday’s lawsuit marks the latest twist in the laptop saga, which began with a New York Post story in October 2020 detailing some of the emails allegedly found on the device that were linked to the Hunter’s foreign business transactions.
It was quickly seized upon by Trump as a campaign issue during the American presidential elections of that year.
Hunter does not explicitly acknowledge that the laptop left at the computer store was his, but says “at least some” of the data was on his iPhone or backed up to iCloud.
A Justice Department special prosecutor is also conducting a separate investigation into Hunter’s taxes and has filed firearms charges against him, and he plans to plead not guilty. He has also been charged with tax crimes.
Republicans in the House of Representatives, meanwhile, have continued to investigate every aspect of Hunter’s business dealings and sought to tie them to his father as part of an impeachment inquiry into President Biden. It is expected that some of their claims will be explained again at a hearing on Thursday.
Meanwhile, after remaining silent as the footage spread across the country, Hunter has changed his tactics and his allies have indicated there is more to come.
In recent months, the younger Biden has sued a former Trump aide over his alleged role in publishing emails and embarrassing images.
Hunter also filed a lawsuit earlier this month against the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), saying his personal information was improperly shared by two agents who testified as whistleblowers as part of an investigation by House Republicans into his business transactions.
The US president’s son has also called for an investigation into Giuliani and Costello, along with the owner of a Wilmington computer repair shop, who says Hunter dropped off a laptop at his store in April 2019 and never returned to pick it up to fetch.
Giuliani provided the information to a New York Post reporter, who first wrote about the laptop, Hunter’s attorney said in a letter urging a federal investigation.
