Laptop From Hell (Actually Delaware)

The Delaware Supreme Court affirmed the dismissal of a defamation action brought against Politico, Hunter Biden and the Biden campaign over the notorious laptop as well as the counterclaim for invasion of privacy

This is an appeal from a Superior Court opinion and order that dismissed a computer-repair-shop owner’s defamation claims against a customer, various news outlets, and a political campaign committee, as well as counterclaims brought by the customer against the shop owner. For the reasons that follow, we have concluded that the Superior Court did not err when it held that the allegedly defamatory statements did not concern the plaintiff shop owner and thus were not actionable. Likewise, given the manner in which the customer framed his counterclaims and argued against dismissal in the Superior Court, the court’s dismissal of the customer’s counterclaims on statute-of-limitations grounds was justified. Hence, we affirm the Superior Court’s order.

Particulars

John Paul Mac Isaac owned and operated a computer repair business in Wilmington called The Mac Shop. Mac Isaac claims that, in April 2019, Robert Hunter Biden, son of then-former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., came to The Mac Shop looking to recover data from a damaged laptop. Mac Isaac agreed to recover the data, so Biden left his laptop at the shop. Before leaving the shop, Biden signed a repair authorization form. The repair authorization stated, among other things, that “[e]quipment left with the Mac Shop after 90 days of notification of completed services will be treated as abandoned and [the customer] agrees to hold the Mac Shop harmless for any damage or loss of property.”

The following day, at Mac Isaac’s request, Biden returned to The Mac Shop and dropped off an external hard drive onto which Mac Isaac was to transfer the recovered data from the laptop. Mac Isaac finished recovering and transferring the data later that day and called Biden to let him know that the data recovery was complete. A few days later, Mac Isaac also sent Biden an electronic invoice for the service in the amount of $85.00. Biden never picked up his laptop or paid the invoice, despite Mac Isaac’s numerous requests to do so.

During the data-recovery process, Mac Isaac saw some of the laptop’s data, including communications and images. He claims that, at first, he “did not think anything of” the information he saw.5 In July 2019, however, after hearing about what he had seen and informed the Federal Bureau of Investigation (“FBI”) about the laptop. In December 2019, after receiving a federal grand jury subpoena, he turned over the original laptop and hard drive to the FBI. Before he parted ways with the original, though, he made an exact copy of the hard drive.

Several months later, after watching the hearings concerning the impeachment of then-President Donald J. Trump, Mac Isaac came to believe that the laptop contained information relevant to the hearing. And because the laptop data had not been mentioned during the impeachment hearings, Mac Isaac questioned whether President Trump even knew about it. This prompted him to contact Robert Costello in August 2020. Costello was an attorney for Rudolph Guiliani, the former New York City mayor, former presidential candidate, and in 2020, a supporter of President Trump. Mac Isaac, hoping that Guiliani would share the information with President Trump, provided Costello with a copy of the hard drive and the repair authorization. When Mac Isaac delivered these items to Costello, he asked Costello not to disclose his identity, claiming that he wanted to remain anonymous. It would appear that Costello did not honor this request, and Mac Isaac’s anonymity was short-lived.

Guiliani provided copies of the hard drive and repair authorization to the New York Post. The New York Post set to work on an article concerning the information contained on the hard drive and, having learned Mac Isaac’s identity from Guliani, reached out to him. Mac Isaac, unaware of the details of the forthcoming article, verified various facts for the New York Post, including how he came to possess the data, that he turned the original laptop and hard drive over to the FBI, and that he had given a copy of the hard drive to Costello. Mac Isaac, having confirmed these pivotal details about the laptop, told the New York Post that he did not want to be identified in the article.

On October 14, 2020—less than three weeks before the presidential election—the New York Post broke the story on Biden’s laptop, publishing an online article titled “Smoking-gun email reveals how Hunter Biden introduced Ukrainian businessman to VP dad.” The article summarized information obtained from “a massive trove of data recovered from a laptop computer” that had been dropped off at a repair shop in Delaware. The article reported that the laptop contained emails between Biden and various Ukrainian officials, the contents of which suggested corrupt activity by former-Vice President Joseph Biden, then a candidate in the impending presidential election. In addition to summarizing the emails, the article stated that the laptop also contained a video of Biden “smoking crack while engaged in sexual acts with an unidentified woman, as well as numerous other sexually explicit images.”

Although the New York Post article did not mention Mac Isaac by name, it referred several times to the “owner” of the Delaware computer store where the laptop had been dropped off. For example, the article stated that “[t]he customer who brought in the water-damaged MacBook Pro for repair never paid for the service or retrieved it or a hard drive on which its contents were stored, according to the shop owner, who said he tried repeatedly to contact the client.”10 The article also stated that the “shop’s owner alerted the feds to the[] existence” of the laptop and hard drive, “[b]ut before turning over the gear, the shop owner says, he made a copy of the hard drive and later gave it to former Mayor Rudy Giuliani’s lawyer, Robert Costello.” And notably, the article as originally published online included a photo of the repair authorization, which identified The Mac Shop as the computer repair store in Delaware that had serviced the laptop.

Based on the information from the New York Post article, media outlets were able to identify Mac Isaac as the shop owner who had serviced the laptop and given its data to Costello. The same day that the article was published—October 14— several journalists went to The Mac Shop to interview Mac Isaac. Among those journalists was a reporter for the Daily Beast. Mac Isaac claims that these reporters entered The Mac Shop uninvited and “accosted” him for nearly an hour about the New York Post article and his involvement in disclosing the contents of the laptop. Later that day, the Daily Beast published an online article titled “Man Who Reportedly Gave Hunter’s Laptop to Rudy Speaks Out in Bizarre Interview.” The Daily Beast article identified Mac Isaac by name as the shop owner who had given Biden’s data to the FBI and Costello.

Alleged Politico defamation

On October 19, 2020, Politico published an online article with the headline, “Hunter Biden story is Russian disinfo, dozens of former intel officials say.” The sub-headline, which appeared directly below the headline, reported that “[m]ore than 50 former intelligence officials signed a letter casting doubt on the provenance of the New York Post story on the former vice president’s son.” The article accurately summarized a “Public Statement on the Hunter Biden Emails” signed by fifty former intelligence officers that had been released earlier that day. The Politico article also contained a hyperlink to the actual public statement itself.

Counterclaim barred by statute of limitations

The New York Post and Daily Beast articles contained facts sufficient to raise Biden’s suspicions and put him on notice that Mac Isaac had intruded upon his private life. Thus, to avoid § 8119’s time bar, Biden’s invasion-of-privacy-by-intrusion claim should have been filed no later than October 13, 2022. Because Biden did not file his counterclaim until March 17, 2023, the court correctly dismissed his invasion-of-privacy-by-intrusion claim as timebarred. Consequently, the court also properly dismissed Biden’s related aiding-and-abetting and conspiracy counterclaims.

Affirmed dismissal of claims and summary judgment on counterclaims

we affirm the Superior Court’s order dismissing Mac Isaac’s claims and Biden’s counterclaims, as well as the court’s grant of summary judgment in Biden’s favor.

VALIHURA, J., dissenting:

I join the Majority in all of its holdings except one: its affirmance of the Superior Court’s dismissal of Mac Isaac’s defamation claim against Politico on the grounds that the statement was not defamatory. I respectfully dissent from the Majority’s holding because I believe that Mac Isaac’s allegations that the Politico headline was defamatory met the liberal Rule 12(b)(6) pleading standard. In addition, I believe that he was not a limited public figure at the time the alleged defamatory headline was published. Because I would reverse the Superior Court’s dismissal of Mac Isaac’s defamation claim against Politico, I respectfully dissent.

(Mike Frisch)