ROCKVILLE, Md. — The Delaware computer repairman at the center of the Hunter Biden laptop controversy is taking legal action against a high-ranking member of Congress and a few media outlets, including CNN.
John Paul Mac Isaac has filed a multimillion-dollar defamation lawsuit against the cable television network as well as U.S. Rep. Adam Schiff, a California Democrat who chairs the U.S. House Intelligence Committee; The Daily Beast; and Politico.
Mac Isaac told Fox News and the New York Post that his life was thrown into disarray after he was publicly outed for giving a copy of the laptop's hard drive to the FBI in December 2019. At that time, the U.S. Justice Department was already investigating Hunter Biden's overseas business activity.
Ten months later, in October 2020, The Post reported that it had received a copy of the hard drive from President Donald Trump's personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani.
Mac Isaac told The Post that Hunter Biden dropped the laptop off at his store in Delaware for repairs in April 2019 and never returned to pick it up. He said he ended up losing his business after being wrongly accused of being part of a "Russian disinformation" campaign.
The Associated Press reported in April 2022 that, if Republicans retake control of the House in November, lawmakers and staff have discussed analyzing specific messages and financial transactions found on the laptop and issuing congressional subpoenas to foreign entities involved in paying Hunter Biden, according to people familiar with the matter who were not authorized to speak publicly and spoke on the condition of anonymity.
GOP members of the House Intelligence Committee also want to investigate the origins of a widely shared letter from 50 former intelligence officials released a week after the New York Post's 2020 story, according to the AP. The letter claimed the laptop carried "all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation" and suggested that "the Russians are involved in the Hunter Biden email issue."
Joe Biden referred to that letter in his second debate with President Donald Trump in 2020.
The AP also reported last month that the DOJ's investigation of Hunter Biden, being led by the U.S. Attorney's Office in Wilmington, was progressing, with a federal grand jury hearing testimony about his income and payments he received while serving on the board of Burisma, a Ukraine energy company. Hunter Biden was being paid as much as $50,000 per month while his father, Joe Biden, served as vice president.
While Joe Biden is reportedly not being investigated as part of the probe of Hunter Biden's business activity, the AP said the White House is preparing to defend the Democratic president from any allegations of wrongdoing.
Joe Biden has said he's never spoken to his son about his foreign business.
