The former Delaware computer repair shop owner who says he came into possession of Hunter Biden’s laptop sued Twitter for a second time over how the social media platform handled a New York Post story on President Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, alleging the tech company defamed him by implying he was a hacker.
John Paul Mac Isaac filed his lawsuit on Thursday in the Southern District of Florida, claiming he was forced to shut down his business, in part, because Twitter labeled the contents of Hunter Biden’s laptop as being hacked materials, which he denied, and he said had caused damage to his reputation.
A prior lawsuit, also claiming defamation and demanding $500 million in damages, was filed in the same court and tossed out by a judge in late December over lack of jurisdiction. In his new lawsuit, Mac Isaac attempts to bypass the jurisdiction issue. He also says that there had been defamation damages greater than $75,000 and that the exact award amount could be determined after a trial.
In addition, Mac Isaac asked Twitter to “make a public retraction of all false statements and to issue a public apology” to him.
“Plaintiff is not a hacker and the information obtained from the computer does not constitute hacked materials because Plaintiff lawfully gained access to the computer, first with the permission of its owner, Biden, and then, after Biden failed to retrieve the recovered data despite Plaintiff’s reuses, in accordance with the Mac Shop’s abandoned property police,” Mac Isaac’s lawyer contended in the federal lawsuit. “Plaintiff, as a direct result of Defendant Twitter’s actions and statements, is now widely considered a hacker.”
The New York Post reporting in question, published in October, claimed the publication received a copy of a laptop and hard drive belonging to Hunter Biden from Rudy Giuliani, who was a lawyer for former President Donald Trump. Giuliani claimed he obtained the hard drive from Mac Isaac’s repair shop, and Mac Isaac said he also provided a copy to the FBI after Hunter Biden had left it behind after dropping it off for repairs in April 2019. Hunter Biden has not denied that it was his hardware.
The outlet reported that emails showed evidence of a possible meeting between Hunter Biden, his father, who was the vice president at the time, and a top executive at a Ukrainian energy firm, which the elder Biden denies took place as was described in the reporting. The newspaper also detailed Hunter Biden’s financial dealings with shady Chinese businessmen.
When the publication attempted to post the articles on its Twitter account, the social media company claimed doing so violated its rule against sharing “hacked” materials.
“Twitter knew or should have known that its statement that the New York Post’s story contained hacked materials would cause harm to the Plaintiff,” Mac Isaac’s lawyer argued. “The statements allege that Plaintiff committed crimes including (but not limited to) computer hacking of the son of the Democratic Party nominee, now President, Joe Biden. The implication of an attempt to undermine American democracy and the 2020 presidential election is obvious.”
A Twitter spokesperson declined to comment on the matter to the Washington Examiner.
Biden’s campaign and many in the media dismissed the Hunter Biden laptop story as being part of a Russian disinformation operation, though then-Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe said that “there is no intelligence that supports that … Hunter Biden’s laptop is part of some Russian disinformation campaign.”
In late December, Judge Beth Bloom, a federal court judge in Florida, quickly tossed out Mac Isaac’s first lawsuit, saying, “The Court lacks subject matter jurisdiction … The Complaint alleges that Plaintiff is a resident of Delaware and that Defendant is a Delaware corporation with an office in Dade County, Florida. … The Complaint fails to allege complete diversity.”
In his new lawsuit, Mac Isaac said he now lives in Colorado as he filed the lawsuit in Florida, arguing Twitter operates in Florida, has Florida offices, and caused injury to Mac Isaac while doing business in Florida. His lawsuit was also filed against MadBits LLC, which he claimed “exists solely to allow Defendant Twitter to operate its business and employ employees in the State of Florida.” The lawsuit contended that “Twitter’s actions and statements had the specific intent to communicate to its users, including its Florida resident users, that Plaintiff is a hacker and/or hacked the published materials.”
After the election, it was revealed that Hunter Biden has been under criminal investigation as federal authorities scrutinize his taxes. While the full scope of the federal inquiries has not been made public, the younger Biden’s financial dealings with China are likely at the forefront. After being asked in December if he still thought reports about his son were Russian disinformation, Biden replied, “Yes, yes, yes. God love you, man — you’re a one-horse pony, I tell you.”
The Biden administration asked all Senate-confirmed U.S. attorneys to submit their resignations but says it is keeping John Durham on as a special counsel as he investigates the Trump-Russia investigation and is also retaining Delaware U.S. Attorney David Weiss, who is conducting the tax inquiry into Hunter Biden.
The day after Twitter blocked the New York Post’s mid-October stories on Hunter Biden, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey tweeted, “Straight blocking of URLs was wrong, and we updated our policy and enforcement to fix. Our goal is to attempt to add context, and now we have capabilities to do that.”
But the company continued to lock the New York Post’s Twitter account, insisting that the outlet delete its Hunter Biden story tweets, despite no longer apparently violating any Twitter policies. Two weeks later, the New York Post tweeted out a “Free Bird” newspaper headline, and the outlet celebrated, writing, “Twitter backed down Friday in its battle with The Post and unlocked its main account after a two-week stalemate over the Hunter Biden expose.”
Dorsey testified about the controversy before the Senate Judiciary Committee in November, after Biden defeated Trump.
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“We were called here today because of an enforcement decision we made against the New York Post based on a policy we created in 2018 to prevent Twitter from being used to spread hacked materials. This resulted in us blocking people from sharing a New York Post article publicly or privately. We made a quick interpretation, using no other evidence, that the materials in the article were obtained through hacking, and, according to our policy, we blocked them from being spread,” Dorsey said. “Upon further consideration, we admitted this action was wrong and corrected it within 24 hours.”
