Hunter Biden, the son of US President Joe Biden, has filed a counter lawsuit against a computer repair shop owner in Delaware who worked on a laptop, according to a report in The Washington Post. The lawsuit is in response to a defamation suit filed by the shop owner John Paul Mac Isaac last year. This is the latest development in battle over how sensitive data and images of the US President's son were obtained nearly four years ago, the outlet further said.
In the 42-page claim, Mr Biden had his lawyers have said that Mr Mac Isaac had no legal right to copy and distribute private information. They have accused the laptop repairman and others invasion of privacy and conspiracy to obtain and distribute data.
However, Mr Biden doesn't confirm in the filing that the laptop is his. The filing said Mr Mac Isaac did not act responsibly with the data found on the laptop and its hard drive.
They said reputable computer companies and repair people routinely delete personal data on devices that are left behind or abandoned but do not "open, copy or provide the data to others".
"Mac Isaac intended and knew, or clearly should have known, that people to whom he provided the data that he believed to belong to Mr. Biden would use it against then-candidate Joseph Biden and to assist then-President Trump," CNN said quoting from Mr Biden's court filing on Friday.
The repairman, in his lawsuit, said that the laptop and external hard drive became his property in 2019 when Mr Biden did not retrieve them within 90 days after leaving the devices at the shop. Mr Mac Isaac also claimed that Mr Biden defamed him by saying he had illegally accessed the data.
He gave the devices to FBI and tried to share the data on the hard drive with former US President Donald Trump's attorney Rudy Giuliani.
Mr Biden's lawyers are seeking deposition from Mr Giuliani in the lawsuit.
