DOVER, Del. (AP) – A computer repairman at the center of a controversy over Hunter Biden’s laptop has lost his defamation case against news media, the president’s son and Joe Biden’s presidential campaign.
A Delaware judge on Monday also dismissed Hunter Biden’s claims accusing Wilmington computer store owner John Paul Mac Isaac of invasion of privacy.
Mac Isaac claimed he was defamed by media reports and statements from Hunter Biden and his father’s presidential campaign suggesting that the laptop left in his store in April 2019 was part of a Russian disinformation campaign and that the computer and the data on it may have been stolen.
The laptop surfaced publicly in October 2020 when The New York Post reported on the emails it contained about Hunter Biden’s business dealings in Ukraine, where the Obama administration’s foreign policy efforts were led by his father. In response, 51 former intelligence officials signed a public statement claiming that the laptop story had “all the classic hallmarks of a Russian information operation,” a claim that turned out to be false.
In a 2021 television interview, Hunter Biden said his laptop could have been stolen or hacked, or that Russian intelligence was involved.
Mac Isaac said he was vilified by suggestions that he was a thief, a hacker or involved in a Russian plot.
Hunter Biden’s lawyers argued that his comments were opinion, did not mention Isaac by name and therefore could not be defamatory. Judge Robert Robinson Jr. of the Supreme Court agreed.
Ronald Poliquin, an attorney for Mac Isaac, told The Associated Press that he plans to appeal.
“Hunter Biden went on national television and put the American public on notice by indicating that John Paul Mac Isaac was part of a Russian hoax even though he knew it was false,” Poliquin said in an email. “As the FBI has confirmed, Biden delivered his laptop to the Mac Shop. Hunter Biden lied and must be held accountable.”
Robinson also dismissed Mac Isaac’s defamation claims against CNN and Politico for their reporting on the laptop, as well as the claims against Joe Biden’s campaign committee for saying the laptop’s contents were Russian disinformation.
The judge also said Hunter Biden’s counterclaims against Mac Isaac for invasion of privacy should be dismissed because he waited too long to file them.
