Hunter Biden sues ex-Donald Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani over ‘total annihilation’ of his digital privacy
- Hunter Biden alleges Rudy Giuliani and lawyer Robert Costello illegally accessed a hard drive he left at a repair shop and unlawfully manipulated the data
- The suit comes as he steps up litigation efforts in the wake of his indictment on firearms charges, as his father US President Joe Biden runs for re-election
Hunter Biden sued Rudy Giuliani for allegedly taking part in the “total annihilation” of his digital privacy by hacking and manipulating data from his purported laptop, as he steps up a litigation effort in the wake of his indictment.
“For the past many months and even years, Defendants have dedicated an extraordinary amount of time and energy toward looking for, hacking into, tampering with, manipulating, copying, disseminating, and generally obsessing over data that they were given that was taken or stolen from Plaintiff’s devices or storage platforms,” according to the lawsuit.
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In Tuesday’s suit, he claims Costello violated California law by using Hunter Biden’s username to access an external hard drive he obtained from the repair shop owner, who said it contained “hundreds of gigabytes of Plaintiff’s personal data.” He claims Giuliani “has not only admitted but bragged about downloading data from Plaintiff’s ‘laptop’ [even though he only had a hard drive] onto his own computer.”
Costello and a spokesman for Giuliani didn’t immediately respond to messages seeking comment on the suit.
Giuliani has also been sued by Costello’s firm for unpaid legal fees and found liable for defaming two Georgia election workers he falsely accused of rigging the vote against Trump. He is also facing criminal charges.
In his suit, Hunter Biden seeks unspecified monetary damages from Giuliani and Costello as well as the return of any financial benefits they obtained from the allegedly unlawful conduct. He is also asking for a court order requiring Giuliani to return the data to him and barring him from tampering with it.
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Hunter Biden maintains in a footnote that the suit “is not an admission” that the repair shop owner possessed “any particular laptop containing electronically stored data belonging to Plaintiff,” though he acknowledges that some of the data is his.
Still, he argues, it was “manipulated, altered and damaged before it was copied and sent to Defendants; and Defendants’ illegal hacking and tampering has involved further alterations and damage.”
