Hunter Biden and his family’s team of high-powered attorneys amended their lawsuit Friday, against the former Delaware computer repair shop owner at the center of Hunter’s laptop scandal that exacerbated and illustrated for the world the First Son’s life of ruin.
Not surprisingly, the liberal media — ranging from ABCNews.com to Delaware’s top newspaper to The Washington Post — were so favorable in covering this filing against John Mac Isaac that they rhetorically camped themselves inside Hunter’s colon.
And seeing as how we’ve repeatedly shown that the major broadcast networks of ABC, CBS, and NBC have displayed barely any interest in the story on their flagship AM and PM shows, this provides a glimpse into how they’d report on it if they were forced to.
ABCNews.com’s Lucien Bruggeman was shameless in her acceptance of Team Hunter’s framing:
Attorneys representing Hunter Biden filed his answer and counterclaims alleging invasion of privacy in response to a defamation lawsuit brought by the Delaware-based computer repairman who they say triggered the infamous laptop controversy in the weeks leading up to the 2020 presidential election.
The step represents a major escalation in the younger Biden's increasingly aggressive legal posture toward some of his most vocal critics and those who allegedly trafficked his personal information.
The suit, filed in a Delaware federal court, targets John Paul Mac Isaac, a computer repairman who in April 2019 purportedly obtained and later disseminated data from a laptop allegedly belonging to the president's son.
Bruggeman added that the new filing was “the latest turn in an increasingly offensive legal tack” for Hunter as he had “until recently...largely avoided public confrontations about his business dealings.”
Gee, wonder how he was able to duck “public confrontations”?!
One of the more comical lines came when Bruggeman insisted Mac Issac “emerged as a central figure in the drama surrounding Hunter Biden's laptop in the waning days of the 2020 presidential campaign, when images, emails, and text messages allegedly belonging to Hunter Biden emerged in public and galvanized the national conversation as voters took to the polls.”
Later in the piece, she further boasted: “This new legal offensive comes as congressional scrutiny of President Biden's family ramps up and federal prosecutors press forward in their yearslong probe of Hunter Biden's tax affairs and overseas business endeavors.”
Rating: Pants on Fire. Talk about an alternate reality where the corporate media were diligent (they weren’t), have remained to update on the latest findings (they haven’t been), took it seriously (they didn’t), and made it top of mind for voters (it wasn’t).
But here was the most comical line: “ABC News has not reviewed nor verified the contents of the laptop or hard drive.”
Yes, we know. In fact, ABC was the only broadcast network who hasn’t authenticated it after CBS and NBC did last year along with The New York Times and Washington Post.
Speaking of The Post, wannabe Biden adviser Matt Viser was tasked with typing up the updated suit for the Biden family in “Hunter Biden sues laptop repair shop owner, citing invasion of privacy.”
Viser gushed that Hunter “filed a sweeping countersuit” against Mac Isaac “that escalates the battle over how provocative data and images of the president’s son were obtained nearly five years ago.”
Fretting a progression in the suit “could draw further attention to a sordid chapter in Hunter Biden’s life one involving nude photos, sensitive audio and a trove of personal texts and emails,” Viser spun the web that Hunter’s team wanted to portray him as: “a private citizen whose privacy was allegedly invaded”.
Viser was obviously concerned for the President, bemoaning the fact it “could become an awkward distraction for President Biden” even though, despite all the histrionics and admitting material was Hunter’s, the First Son “has never explicitly confirmed that the laptop was his.”
Viser went to work poking holes in the basic paperwork Hunter signed when he dropped off his laptop, insisting the laptop was “the subject of intense scrutiny dating” back to the New York Post’s original, October 14, 2020 story, and offering a dubious conspiracy that the information may have been planted (click “expand”):
Mac Isaac and his allies have often pointed to a signed receipt saying that any property not retrieved after 90 days would be forfeited. But Biden’s attorneys say that agreement had flaws.
The boilerplate terms, they say, were contained in small print at the bottom of the page, well below the signature line. Delaware law says that personal property is only deemed abandoned after one year, and that certain steps have to be taken, such as posting public notices asking that the owner retrieve the property.
(....)
The data alleged to have come from the laptop has been the subject of intense scrutiny dating from stories that the New York Post published just before the 2020 election. At the time, The Washington Post repeatedly asked Giuliani and Trump ally Stephen K. Bannon for a copy of the data to review, but the requests were rebuffed or ignored.
(....)
The attorneys are also seeking testimony from conservative activist Garrett M. Ziegler, who has uploaded some of the data in his possession, and Keith Ablow, a psychiatrist from whom Hunter Biden sought treatment.
Ablow, who has been close to Republican activist Roger Stone, had one of Hunter Biden’s laptops at his Massachusetts-based office. That laptop was seized by agents who raided Ablow’s office in February 2020, and it was eventually returned to Biden. Some of Hunter Biden’s close associates have theorized that that laptop may have been the basis of the hard drives that were later distributed by Trump allies.
Over at CNN.com, Katelyn Polantz said it was part of a “yearslong saga surrounding Hunter Biden’s data has influenced the 2020 election, the debate over internet censorship, House GOP investigations into the Biden family, and beyond” with documents and photos detailing “his lucrative overseas business dealings China, Ukraine and elsewhere.”
Gee, someone should look into that! And tell Polantz’s colleague Melanie Zardona, as she seems to think there’s nothing to see here.
CBS was too lazy to publish their own story and actually republished CNN’s. Really.
Meanwhile, NBCNews.com and writer Sarah Fitzpatrick trumpeted the efforts of Team Hunter (click “expand”):
Lawyers for Hunter Biden stepped up their legal offensive against top Trump allies on Friday by filing a countersuit regarding the alleged dissemination of Biden’s electronic data and notifying a federal judge of their intention to seek depositions from Steve Bannon and Rudy Giuliani.
The court filings include a lawsuit targeting John Paul Mac Isaac, the computer repair shop owner who said Hunter Biden abandoned a water-damaged laptop at his Wilmington, Delaware, store about 18 months before the 2020 election. Biden’s attorneys are alleging invasion of privacy and argue Mac Isaac helped copy and disseminate Hunter Biden’s data for political and commercial purposes.
(....)
The countersuit and responses to Mac Isaac’s original lawsuit cite public statements that Mac Isaac, Bannon, Giuliani and others have made regarding their involvement with Hunter Biden’s electronic data. The new suit alleges that Delaware law did not permit Mac Isaac to access or copy the data, drawing a distinction between abandoned “equipment” and data on or embedded within a device.
USA Today? More of the same. Bart Jansen leaned into Hunter’s spin with “‘Egregious violation’: Hunter Biden sues computer repairman who gave laptop data to Trump allies.”
Jansen explained in his lede, “Hunter Biden filed a claim Friday in federal court over a laptop filled with his personal information that was widely distributed, alleging that a computer repairman violated his privacy, took part in a conspiracy and helped others invade his privacy.”
Ignoring this bizarre line of thinking that the data was his but not necessarily the laptop, Jansen said “[t]he files included pictures of Hunter Biden using drugs, without clothes and in intimate relations with other adults.”
And where did they come from, Bart?
In a possible tease of things to come, Jansen dispassionately touted calls from Hunter’s team to have his father’s Justice Department as well as their family friend and Delaware Attorney General Kathy Jennings (D) target Mac Isaac.
Politico and Kierra Frazier had more revisionist history on 2020 in claiming the laptop was “an issue that became central in the weeks leading up to the 2020 presidential election” as “[i]mages, emails and text messages that allegedly belonged to Hunter Biden later became public.”
That last part would be true, but only if you searched alternative media, including conservative outlets.
Frazier similarly didn’t dispute the tortured logic on whether the laptop was Hunter’s (as Axios would also do) and instead merely quoted the filing. She added that Politico hasn’t “authenticated the Biden hard drive files that underpinned an October 2020 New York Post story, but” their own “Ben Schreckinger confirmed the authenticity of some emails on the drive in a 2021 book.”
Finally in local media, Delaware Online (the website for the Wilmington News Journal) said Hunter was “suing the Trolley Square computer repair shop owner who claimed Biden dropped off his computer and never retrieved it,” with Mac Isaac “rocket[ing] into the national spotlight in October 2020” and has since “portray[ed] himself as a victim in the scandal.”
If the First Family were hot on your trail and imploring the president’s Justice Department and the AG of the state the family unofficially rules over to join in, wouldn’t you think of yourself that way?
