The computer repair store at the center of a scandal involving a laptop allegedly belonging to Hunter Biden that contained “smoking-gun” emails about the Biden family’s foreign dealings has closed.
A neighbor said the owner skipped town, according to the Delaware News Journal. The outlet also reported that 10 days after the election, a sign appeared on the store’s door to say that the shop had closed.
Weeks ahead of the 2020 presidential election, the New York Post published a series of stories based on emails and other data recovered from a laptop and hard drive that allegedly belonged to Hunter Biden that critics say raise concerns about foreign business dealings that present possible corruption and national security issues for him and his father, President-elect Joe Biden.
The “smoking-gun email” report claimed that the elder Biden met with an executive at the Ukrainian energy company Burisma Holdings, which employed Hunter Biden, while he was vice president and suggested he directed U.S. foreign policy to protect his son. The Biden campaign released a statement that said the former vice president’s “official schedules from the time” showed no meeting with Vadym Pozharskyi, an adviser to the board of Burisma, as was described in the report, but it otherwise did not deny the validity of the hardware’s contents.
People working at the New York Post called the reporting “very flimsy” and argued that it “should not have been published.”
An attorney for John Paul Mac Isaac, who owned the Delaware repair shop, said that Mac Isaac closed the shop because he had received death threats. The attorney, Brian Della Rocca, did not say where his client has gone or if he left town at all.
After the New York Post broke its story, Fox News reported that the laptop in question was linked to an FBI money-laundering investigation, citing documents and law enforcement officials who verified their authenticity. It’s unclear whether the investigation was directly related to Hunter Biden or if that investigation is still open. Reports also came out that said the FBI was looking into whether the Hunter Biden materials were tied to a foreign disinformation campaign.
Della Rocca said that his office “has spoken in recent weeks with Wilmington FBI agents and with Delaware’s Assistant United States Attorney Leslie Wolf.”
The attorney declined to tell Delaware News Journal the nature of those conversations or whether they related to the previous money-laundering investigation. He did say that he “doesn’t anticipate Mac Isaac becoming entangled in a potential lawsuit or criminal investigation.”
Della Rocca also said his office is investigating whether files that Rudy Giuliani, President Trump’s personal attorney who gave the hard drive to the New York Post, were actually on the hard drive when Mac Issac shared it with Giuliani.
