An attorney for former Trump aide Garrett Ziegler told the Daily Caller what he thinks of the latest legal developments surrounding President Joe Biden’s embattled son Hunter.
Bob Tyler, President and General Counsel of Advocates for Faith and Freedom, and one of the attorneys representing Ziegler, believes Biden’s federal tax indictment in California and the DOJ’s verification of Hunter Biden’s laptop archive strengthens Ziegler’s argument for having Hunter Biden’s lawsuit against him dismissed. (RELATED: FBI Investigators Found Cocaine On Firearm Pouch Hunter Biden Used, Prosecutors Say)
Hunter Biden sued Ziegler in September for alleged computer fraud because his organization, non profit research group Marco Polo, created a publicly available database with the contents of Hunter Biden’s abandoned laptop archive.
READ THE LAWSUIT:
“Since approximately December 2020, Defendant Ziegler, Defendant ICU and their ‘team’ of volunteers and independent contractors have spent countless hours accessing, tampering with, manipulating, altering, copying and damaging computer data that they do not own and that they claim to have obtained from hacking into Plaintiff’s iPhone data and from scouring a copy of the hard drive of what they claim to be Plaintiff’s “laptop” computer,” Biden’s lawsuit alleges.
His lawsuit concedes “the precise manner by which Defendant Ziegler obtained Plaintiff’s data remains unclear” and cites news reports and Ziegler’s past interviews as evidence. The lawsuit accuses Ziegler of refusing to hand over the data for Biden’s team to inspect.
“To some degree, everything that’s going on, it helps. It helps in our case in terms of validating what our ultimate defense is. Ultimately what this case is about, this is an effort to censor an investigative reporter and it’s an effort to silence them and shut them up, but there’s a First Amendment right for investigative reporters,” Tyler told the Caller in an interview.
“As every new public filing is made, whether it’s by the DOJ, the folks for the IRS, the California case, or it’s the contempt, the potential contempt charges that may be brought against Hunter Biden for failing to show up to congress, it all reveals the fact that this is a significant matter of public interest and just the filing themselves support our defense that our client, an investigative reporter, has a First Amendment right to write on these topics and provide the information publicly,” Tyler added.
Special counsel David Weiss and his team filed multiple response motions in Delaware Tuesday countering Biden’s effort to have three federal gun charges against him dismissed. In a response motion to Biden’s selective prosecution claim, DOJ prosecutors confirmed Hunter Biden’s laptop archive was verified by federal investigators. (RELATED: House Republicans To Issue Fresh Subpoenas To Hunter Biden)
READ THE MOTION:
“In August 2019, IRS and FBI investigators obtained a search warrant for tax violations for the defendant’s Apple iCloud account. In response to that warrant, in September 2019, Apple produced backups of data from various of the defendant’s electronic devices that he had backed up to his iCloud account,” the motion states.
“Investigators also later came into possession of the defendant’s Apple MacBook Pro, which he had left at a computer store. A search warrant was also obtained for his laptop and the results of the search were largely duplicative of information investigators had already obtained from Apple.”
Hunter Biden pleaded not guilty to the federal gun charges in October and faces up to 25 years in prison for the felony offenses.
IRS whistleblower Gary Shapley provided similar details to the House Ways and Means Committee when he testified in May about the criminal investigation into Hunter Biden.
“In October 2019, the FBI became aware that a repair shop had a laptop allegedly belonging to Hunter Biden and that the laptop might contain evidence of a crime. The FBI verified its authenticity in November of 2019 by matching the device number against Hunter Biden’s Apple iCloud ID,” Shapley testified.
“When the FBI took possession of the device in December 2019, they notified the IRS that it likely contained evidence of tax crimes,” he added. (RELATED: House Republicans Release Report Detailing How DOJ Gave Hunter Biden ‘Special Treatment’ During Investigation)
Ziegler filed a motion to dismiss the Biden lawsuit in December for lacking jurisdiction, failing to state its claims of computer fraud and attempting to curtail Ziegler’s right to free speech.
READ THE MOTION TO DISMISS:
“Plaintiff’s challenges are largely premised on a report Defendants prepared about Hunter Biden as part of their mission of investigating foreign compromise within government. Defendants relied on copies of files from the Biden Laptop that have been widely circulated since the public learned about the Biden Laptop. This Court should dismiss Plaintiff’s lawsuit for the following reasons,” the motion begins, before it goes through each reason why the lawsuit should be dismissed. A hearing on the motion is scheduled to take place in February.
Marco Polo wrote a lengthy report on all of the information contained in Hunter Biden’s laptop archive. Republican lawmakers such as Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson possess copies of the publicly available report.
“My client has done an incredible public service to the citizens of the great United States, and that is by making this available to the public and the fact that it’s been made available to the public has forced the Department of Justice, in my opinion, has forced the Department of Justice to act. It’s even helped congress to have the fortitude to act,” Tyler said.
House Republicans have launched an impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden based on his alleged role in his son’s foreign business dealings. The Biden family and its associates received more than $24 million from foreign sources over an approximately five year period, House Republicans said in a September memo. (RELATED: Joe Biden Leads Were ‘Off The Table’ During Hunter Biden Investigation, IRS Whistleblowers Testify)
The laptop hard drive was first reported by the New York Post ahead of the 2020 presidential election. Former Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani gave the Post a copy of the hard drive. Giuliani distributed the hard drive to numerous journalists and news outlets. Ziegler eventually obtained a copy of the laptop hard drive for himself, Tyler said. (RELATED: These Are The Biggest Lies Joe Biden Told About Hunter’s Foreign Influence Peddling)
WASHINGTON, DC – JANUARY 10: Hunter Biden, son of U.S. President Joe Biden, departs a House Oversight Committee meeting at Capitol Hill on January 10, 2024 in Washington, DC. The committee is meeting today as it considers citing him for Contempt of Congress. (Photo by Kent Nishimura/Getty Images)
Hunter Biden’s lawsuit against Ziegler claims the laptop archive was manipulated before he received a copies of the hard drive from Giuliani and a conservative media personality.
The complaint also accuses Ziegler of illegally accessing and manipulating the data on Hunter Biden’s iCloud backup server. Marco Polo’s website displays text messages from Biden’s iPhone backup. Tyler told the Caller the only change Ziegler made to the data was making sure the pornographic content on Biden’s laptop archive is suitable for viewing.
“My client did not manipulate the data to change the facts, statements or misrepresent anything. Our client only censored some of the content as it relates to the pictures so that they wouldn’t be distributing pornographic material,” Tyler said.
“When they have the federal and state cause of action challenging our client saying that number one, he obtained the laptop illegally. Our client never obtained the laptop. There was a copy of the laptop put on a memory drive that was done by the shop owner,” Tyler explained.
“He delivered a copy of the information on a memory drive to Rudy Giuliani as I understand it and it made its way to numerous media outlets and reporters, one being our client Garrett Ziegler.”
Biden filed a similar lawsuit against Giuliani for distributing the hard drive and he is listed as a creditor on Giuliani’s bankruptcy filing.
The contents of Biden’s laptop archive have been verified by the Daily Caller News Foundation, New York Times, Washington Post and other news outlets. Facebook and Twitter censored the New York Post’s reporting on the laptop in the lead up to the 2020 presidential election.
“Under the state and federal statutes, one requires that the laptop itself physically have been illegally obtained, manipulated. Secondly, there’s no manipulation because everything that’s there is exactly…the emails haven’t been changed other than maybe highlights here and there reflecting some of the information. But none of the content was changed, none of the meaning was changed,” Tyler added.
Hunter Biden filed the lawsuit in the Central District of California, the same location where he faces nine federal tax charges for allegedly failing to pay over $1 million worth of taxes over a four year period. Abbe Lowell, his defense attorney, attributed the charges to political pressure on Weiss from Republicans. He declined to comment.
“It absolutely helps us,” Tyler said of the California indictment. “It just goes back to show the great public interest that this affects not only Hunter Biden but potentially the president himself.”
He pleaded not guilty to the tax charges at an arraignment on Jan. 11.