Er … whose laptop data might that be? Hunter Biden’s legal team expanded its aggressive strategy, suing Rudy Giuliani and Giuliani’s former attorney Bob Costello for “the total annihilation” of Hunter’s “digital privacy.” The allegations relate to the publication of material from the laptop that Biden abandoned in a repair shop, and which the FBI had already copied for investigations underway at the IRS and the Department of Justice.

But in order for that to be true, won’t Hunter have to admit that the laptop data was actually his, a change in his previous representations in other court proceedings? CNN avoids that question:

Hunter Biden filed a civil lawsuit Tuesday against Rudy Giuliani and his former attorney, claiming they caused “total annihilation” of his digital privacy and violated federal and state computer privacy laws through their alleged efforts to hack his devices.

In the lawsuit filed in federal court in California, Hunter Biden accuses Giuliani and Robert Costello of spending years “hacking into, tampering with, manipulating, copying, disseminating, and generally obsessing over data that they were given that was taken or stolen from” his devices.

“Plaintiff has demanded Defendants Giuliani and Costello cease their unlawful activities with respect to Plaintiff’s data and return any data in their possession belonging to Plaintiff, but they have refused to do so,” attorneys for Hunter Biden wrote in the lawsuit. “Defendants’ statements suggest that their unlawful hacking activities are ongoing today and that, unless stopped, will continue into the future, thereby necessitating this action.”

Bree Dail remembers this moment from two years ago:

“Was that your laptop?”

“For real, I don’t know”.

pic.twitter.com/Jepp8b85gS

— Bree A Dail (@breeadail) September 26, 2023

It looks like Hunter is trying to stick to this modified limited hangout, but it won’t work while Hunter is trying to sue Giuliani and everyone who used the laptop data. If it wasn’t his, he has no claim to it; if it is his, then Hunter is authenticating evidence that will likely be used against him in criminal prosecutions. That could force Biden into admissions in other criminal investigations that could make the lawsuits a very expensive strategy.

ABC News also fails to mention this problem, but does note that Hunter’s legal ‘exposure’ is getting worse all the time:

Hunter Biden has embarked on a sprawling legal counteroffensive in recent months, targeting other alleged handlers of his hard drive data. He also sued the Internal Revenue Service over alleged “unlawful disclosures” made by a pair of whistleblowers who accused government prosecutors of derailing the investigation into Hunter Biden’s taxes.

But even as Hunter Biden engages in a legal blitz, his own potential legal exposure continues to grow.

The 53-year-old is already facing three felony gun charges, and special counsel David Weiss has suggested his office might bring additional criminal tax charges in the coming weeks or months. The younger Biden has signaled that he will plead not guilty to the gun charges at an initial appearance scheduled for next week.

Some of the evidence fueling those investigations came from the laptop that the New York Post first covered in October 2020, only to have the rest of the media suppress it as “Russian disinformation.” That was Joe Biden’s claims for years as well, a claim that they will still dust off from time to time. Eighteen months later, both the New York Times and the Washington Post belatedly reported the FBI had the data from the laptop for a year or so before the Post ran its story and considered it credible enough for criminal investigations into Hunter. Hunter and his legal team, however, have maintained a level of ambiguity about the laptop and its data, refusing to acknowledge it as authentic … until now, apparently.

Furthermore, even if it is authentic, it may not necessarily be Hunter’s data any longer. Hunter is also suing repair shop owner Johnny Mac Isaac over the release of the laptop data in a countersuit to Mac Isaac’s defamation claim against Hunter. In that case too, Hunter will have to admit the data is authentic in order to justify his lawsuit, but there’s another issue involved as well. Mac Isaac argues that the terms and conditions of the repair order made the laptop and all its contents the property of Mac Isaac when Hunter failed to pay for his services and return for the laptop:

The move is a response to a suit filed by Mac Isaac himself last year and amended several times since, alleging that Hunter Biden defamed him by saying he had illegally accessed the data — when in fact, Mac Isaac contends, the laptop became his property when it was abandoned in his shop. The repairman’s suit also targeted CNN, Politico, the Biden campaign and Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-Calif.).

It pays to read the T&C before signing! If that’s what Hunter signed, then Giuliani didn’t hack Hunter or “invade” his privacy in a legal sense. Mac Isaac owned the data, not Hunter, and Mac Isaac gave it to Giuliani and Costello. At the very least, Hunter Biden and his lawyers would have to win their case against Mac Isaac over the ownership of the laptop and its contents before proceeding against anyone else. And even then, Mac Isaac gave the FBI the laptop too, which combined with Joe Biden’s run for the presidency made the data on it of public interest — especially the parts that suggested corrupt activities with foreign powers while his father served as VP and ran for president.

Furthermore, the choice of target shows that this is nothing more than a PR stunt. Why sue Giuliani now? It’s been three years since he made the laptop public, and Giuliani isn’t working for Trump now. In fact, Giuliani is apparently flat broke after Trump stiffed him on his fees, and Giuliani is now getting sued for not paying his own legal fees — by Bob Costello! The time to sue Giuliani was in late 2020 or early 2021, not nearly three years later and when Giuliani is a spent force at best. Hunter’s claiming that this is an ongoing enterprise between Giuliani and Costello and is aiming at other “devices,” but if so, they’re both uniquely inept at it. The only data ever exposed came from the laptop, and that was literally handed to them by Mac Isaac. And the two men are hardly in the mood to work together these days.

This is just the latest iteration of the “sue ’em all and let God or SCOTUS sort them out” strategy of distraction and claimed victimization. They must be very worried about the next indictment coming from the DoJ and ‘special’ counsel David Weiss. And perhaps so is Team Biden.

Update: I wrote New York Post when I meant New York Times, and have corrected it. Big thanks to reader Tom for the correction.