As Joe Biden faces the heat of an impeachment inquiry over his family’s foreign business dealings, his son, Hunter Biden, has embarked on a legal offensive. On Wednesday, lawyers for Hunter Biden filed a 14-page complaint in a California federal court against Garrett Ziegler, a former aide to Trump trade adviser Peter Navarro. The lawsuit accuses Ziegler of violating California’s computer fraud and data access laws.
Hunter Biden’s lawsuit alleges that Ziegler and unnamed co-defendants gained unauthorized access to “tens of thousands of emails, thousands of photos, and dozens of videos and recordings” belonging to him. The accessed data also included “Hunter Biden’s credit card details, financial and bank records,” according to the lawsuit. Notably, some of the information was “stored on the plaintiff’s iPhone and backed up to plaintiff’s iCloud storage,” which the suit claims was accessed by “circumventing technical or code-based barriers.”
Hunter Biden sues former Trump White House aide over laptop data https://t.co/ZJs9tTgF8f pic.twitter.com/GQmqAsHYGU
— New York Post (@nypost) September 14, 2023
The timing is curious. The lawsuit was filed one day after House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) announced an impeachment inquiry into President Biden. “It’s not lost on us that Joe’s son filed this SLAPP one day after an impeachment inquiry into his father was announced,” Ziegler pointed out. The acronym SLAPP refers to a Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation, often seen as an effort to silence critics.
The pending lawsuit occurs as Hunter Biden also faces legal challenges. U.S. prosecutors plan to seek an indictment of him by September 29 in a tax and firearms case. Hunter Biden is also entangled in an ongoing lawsuit against a Delaware computer repairman, John Paul Mac Isaac, who allegedly played a role in disseminating the laptop data back in 2019. Amid all this, Garrett Ziegler brushed off the lawsuit against him, stating it was “not worth the paper it’s written on.”
So, what are we to make of this intricate web of lawsuits and accusations? For conservatives, the lawsuit may appear less about the pursuit of justice and more about a strategic attempt to divert attention from the impeachment inquiry and other challenges the Biden family faces. Given that the impeachment proceedings center on accusations of the Biden family profiting from foreign business ventures, Hunter Biden’s lawsuit could be seen as a smokescreen.
If Hunter Biden is genuinely concerned about the violation of California’s computer fraud and data laws, legal processes should be allowed to run their course. However, the timing and the context raise questions about the lawsuit’s true intent. Is it an earnest plea for justice or a political maneuver to muddy the waters? Ultimately, the American public deserves transparency and truth rather than legal skirmishes that cloud the real issues.
