ABC News Breaks Mainstream Media Blackout Of Hunter Biden Story https://t.co/hYOYpdOwqr
— zerohedge (@zerohedge) October 31, 2020
Brian Della Rocca, the attorney for John Paul Mac Isaac, the owner of the computer repair shop where Hunter Biden left his laptop, released a detailed statement in which he explains the actions taken by Isaac after the laptop was abandoned in his shop.
From the statement, several key facts emerge for the first time:
-Isaac first contacted the FBI in the summer of 2019 about the laptop – but he was turned away. The FBI returned to Isaac in the fall of 2019 when President Trump’s impeachment proceedings got underway.
-Isaac also tried contacting several members of Congress, but “his requests fell on deaf ears,” Della Rocca writes.
-Isaac vehemently denies being part of any Russian disinformation campaign. He “became the target of a smear campaign by doing what he thought was right,” Della Rocca wrote. “John Paul is not a right-wing fanatic nor is he a Russian hacker.”
He blames the nation’s political climate for the accusations being leveled against him and for the story being dismissed as a “conspiracy theory” by certain politicians, the mainstream media and social media companies.
“I do not know what John Paul’s party affiliation is nor does it matter to me,” Della Rocca writes. “John Paul is an American, like the rest of us. I honestly do not know what I would have done in a similar situation. I do know that John Paul did what he believed was right. He has not profited in any way off this situation. The reality is quite the opposite. John Paul will likely have to start a new career at the age of 44. John Paul is not the problem, politics, biased reporting, and social media are.”
Read the full statement by Della Rocca below:
Statement of Attorney Brian Della Rocca:
“I represent John Paul Mac Isaac, the Mac repair shop owner in Wilmington, Delaware who unwittingly became the target of a smear campaign by doing what he thought was right. John Paul is not a right-wing fanatic nor is he a Russian hacker.
By way of background, John Paul has owned his shop for over ten years now. Prior to that, John Paul was the “Lead Genius” at the Apple Store in Littleton, Colorado and New Castle,
Delaware. Once, while employed by Apple, he found himself in a situation where, while fixing a customer’s iMac, he came across seemingly illegal material. He followed protocol and contacted the authorities. No one questioned John Paul’s ethics then.
Fast-forward to April 12, 2019 when a man claiming to be Hunter Biden walked into his shop. While John Paul was pleased that someone of Hunter Biden’s notoriety was in his shop, he did not question why Hunter Biden was there. In fact, Hunter Biden had been referred to John Paul’s shop. John Paul is well respected in the community and it would not have been uncommon for his patrons to refer others to his shop. John Paul provided a solution for one of Hunter Biden’s three laptops on the spot. Another laptop was a complete write-off but the third laptop required more significant intervention. That laptop remained in the shop with John Paul. Hunter Biden returned two days later with an external hard drive to which John Paul would transfer the information.
According to John Paul, recovering the data was difficult because of the significant liquid damage to the drive. He would boot the computer and transfer as much as he could before the computer shut down. Then, he would boot up the computer again, verify what was copied, and then transfer more data until the computer shut down again. This process repeated several
times. During this process, John Paul saw certain pieces of information but, at the time, he did not think anything of it. Instead, John Paul completed the work and contacted Hunter Biden to let him know. Hunter Biden never responded. As requested by Hunter Biden, a secure payment request was sent in an email but was never paid. John Paul contacted him at least one more time but Hunter Biden never responded. The policy of the shop is that items not picked up within 90 days of the completion of the services will be treated as abandoned property.
Around mid-July of 2019, news of Hunter Biden’s business dealings with the Ukraine were coming more into focus and John Paul started to get uncomfortable with the information he had seen. He was unsure if the hard drive contained information pertinent to the legal investigation. At that point, he reached out to his father, a retired Colonel in the U.S. Air Force, for advice about what he should do. They both decided that going to the FBI and handing over the Mac and the drive was their best course of action. Soon thereafter, John Paul’s father took a copy of the hard drive to an FBI field office in Albuquerque, New Mexico. The FBI turned John Paul’s father away.
Then, in mid-October of 2019, an FBI Agent reached out to Colonel Mac Isaac and wanted to discuss the Mac and drive. At that point, Colonel Mac Isaac passed along John Paul’s contact information. The FBI then reached out to John Paul and met him at his house to discuss John Paul’s concerns. On December 9, 2019, the FBI served a Subpoena on John Paul for the computer, the hard drive, and all related paperwork. He willingly gave it to the FBI and was happy to see it go.
Out of an abundance of caution, John Paul made a copy of the drive in case he was ever thrown under the bus as a result of what he knew. As John Paul watched the impeachment trial, he wondered why there was no reference to the information he had provided to the FBI. As a result, starting in February of 2020 and until July of 2020, John Paul reached out to several members of Congress to notify them of what he had in his possession. His requests fell on deaf ears.
Out of frustration, in the beginning of September, John Paul reached out to someone he thought would be able to provide the information directly to the President. That person was Rudy Giuliani. A day after John Paul reached out to Giuliani’s office, Robert Costello, Rudy Giuliani’s lawyer, contacted John Paul to discuss the information and John Paul’s concerns.
On September 24, 2020, John Paul then submitted information about the drive to Senator Ron Johnson through the whistleblower link on Senator Johnson’s website. After that submission and while Giuliani’s office was still trying to verify the information, Senator Johnson released the senate report on the Biden business dealings. As we all know, prior to the New York Post’s exposé, rumors began to circulate about the existence of Hunter Biden’s laptop. Those rumors did not start with John Paul. We believe, due to the timing of the rumors, that the information may have been leaked by Senator Johnson’s office. Then, when Rudy Giuliani released the information to the New York Post, that is when John Paul’s life as a respected part of the Wilmington, Delaware community changed.
Now that the timeline has been established, what do we know?
- We know it is Hunter Biden’s laptop because we have his signature on the Repair Authorization and Hunter Biden’s attorney has reached out to John Paul about the computer.
- Hunter Biden never returned to retrieve the information rendering it abandoned property or, in other words, junk. We know that once you throw something into the trash, you relinquish your privacy rights to it, which is why so many investigations include a search of a person’s trash.
- The FBI confiscated the computer and the external hard drive and left John Paul with a receipt.
- The information on the drive was leaked by someone prior to the New York Post exposé. John Paul has not released any information as he is cooperating with law enforcement and to do so could hurt the investigation.
What do we not know?
- We do not know if all emails released by the New York Post were actually on the hard drive.
- We do not know if the initial leak was from Senator Johnson’s office, from Rudy Giuliani himself, or from somewhere else.
On October 26, 2020, in an opinion piece on CNN, Senator Chris Murphy discussed what he described as the “facts” that Americans need to know about Russia’s interference in the U.S. election. In the piece, Senator Murphy outlines how, as part of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, he is intimately aware of the interference methods being used by Russia. One of those methods includes “hiring unknowing Americans” to do Russia’s bidding. He concludes his piece by surmising that the “strange tale of a purported Biden family laptop’s data ending up in the hands of Rudy Giuliani is a likely sign that Russia’s campaign to plant fictional, anti-Biden propaganda into the US political debate may just be ramping up.” Then, in an effort to support his assumption, he cites a recent letter from fifty (50) former intelligence officials who argued that the laptop story had “all the hallmarks of a Russian operation.”
Senator Murphy failed to share facts with the American public. First, the letter from the former intelligence officials is their opinion based on their experience. They do not have access to the information to be able to know, for a fact, that the information is not part of a Russian operation. Senator Murphy, on the other hand, works with Senator Johnson on the Foreign Relations Committee and has the ability to obtain the information in question. Perhaps he should have done so before writing an opinion piece and labeling it as “fact.”
Congressman Adam Schiff, the Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, also publicly insinuated that the laptop story is related to an alleged smear campaign against Vice President Biden that originated as part of a Russian disinformation plot. Specifically, Congressman Schiff told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer that, “clearly the origins of this whole smear are from the Kremlin,” and “this particular smear, though, has also been acknowledged to come from the Kremlin.”
Congressman, let’s be very clear, the laptop exists and it contains materials relating to Hunter Biden and Burisma. I cannot confirm that the full extent of what was released by Rudy Giuliani is, in fact, on the laptop but you, as the Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, have the authority to find that out. As a reminder, the laptop is with the FBI.
On the other side of the aisle, Senator Johnson, Rudy Giuliani, and countless other Republicans have used the laptop provided to them as part of a political campaign. That was not John Paul’s intent. He was trying to get the information to law enforcement and, in doing so, became a victim of politics. Although he is receiving support from many Americans, he is also the subject of death threats and will likely be out of business as a result of this whole affair. This take no prisoners approach to politics is where the problem lies – on both sides of the political aisle. The rest of us can easily get caught up in the information being presented as if it is fact when, in reality, much of what we hear or read is not.
The news media is not much better. Instead of reporting on the matter, news outlets are making the decision themselves as to the veracity of the claims about Hunter Biden’s laptop. If you are an avid follower of CNN or Politico, you have already been led to believe that John Paul is a part of an overall Russian disinformation campaign.
Twitter and Facebook have taken it upon themselves to relegate this story to a level equal to that of conspiracy theories. The actions by these social media platforms further hurt John Paul’s reputation by advancing the notion that he is a part of a Russian disinformation campaign.
The problem is not that John Paul turned over the information to those he believed he could trust, it is that politics today seems to revel in sensation and ignores the collateral damage left in its wake. Not only are our elected officials seemingly happy to obfuscate the facts in order to attack their opponents, they are also perfectly willing to throw everyday Americans under the bus for their own political gain.
I, myself, am purposely not affiliated with any political party. I do not know what John Paul’s party affiliation is nor does it matter to me. John Paul is an American, like the rest of us. I honestly do not know what I would have done in a similar situation. I do know that John Paul did what he believed was right. He has not profited in any way off this situation. The reality is quite the opposite. John Paul will likely have to start a new career at the age of 44.
John Paul is not the problem, politics, biased reporting, and social media are.