Former Owner of Repair Store Where Hunter Biden Dropped Off Computer Sues Twitter for Defamation

Hunter Biden arrives to the inauguration of Joe Biden on the West Front of the U.S. Capitol in Washington on Jan. 20, 2021. (Win McNamee/Getty Images)

The man whose computer store received a laptop computer from President Joe Biden's son has sued Twitter for alleged defamation.

John Paul Mac Isaac owned a computer repair store in Delaware before closing it last year. He says Hunter Biden dropped off a damaged computer several years ago and would not return calls to pick it up after it was repaired.

Mac Isaac spoke to former President Donald Trump's lawyer Rudy Giuliani, who provided materials from the computer to news outlets.

The first report came from the New York Post. Twitter blocked the spread of the report, claiming it violated its "hacked materials" policy. It said in a statement that its rules on the "distribution of hacked material" were violated.

The statement was defamatory, Mac Isaac's lawyers said in the new filing.

A hack is defined as an intrusion or access to a computer or other device that was either unauthorized or exceeded authorized access. Hackers are defined as people who illegally gain access to computer systems and the term hacker is widely viewed as disparaging, the attorneys said.

"Plaintiff is not a hacker and the information obtained from the computer does not constitute hacked materials because Plaintiff lawfully gained access to the computer, first with the permission of its owner, BIDEN, and then, after BIDEN failed to retrieve the recovered data despite Plaintiff's requests, in accordance with the Mac Shop's abandoned property policy," they wrote.

But as a result of Twitter's actions and statements, Mac Isaac "is now widely considered a hacker." The actions led to a torrent of negative reviews and threats, the attorneys said, eventually forcing him to shutter his business.

Mac Isaac said in a video last year that being labeled a hacker "is a death sentence in my industry."

"For the record, I am not, nor have I ever been, a hacker. Those guys make so much more money than I did. I was hired, and never paid, to perform a data transfer from a MacBook Pro to an external hard drive,” he added.

The new suit includes what Mac Isaac says is authorization from Hunter Biden to work on the computer and an invoice for the work.

The new suit notes that Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey told Congress that the company made "a mistake" and "corrected it within 24 hours."

The New York Post account "fell afoul of the hacked materials policy," Dorsey said. "We realized that there was an error in that policy and the enforcement."

The suit alleges Twitter was grossly negligent in publishing the allegedly defamatory statement and seeks damages in excess of $75,000.

Brian Della Rocca, one of the attorneys representing Mac Isaac, told The Epoch Times via email that the team has been in touch with Twitter and requested an apology. Twitter has not issued an apology as of yet.

Twitter declined to comment on the suit.

Mac Isaac sued Twitter in the same court, the U.S. District Court for the District of Southern Florida, late last year, but saw the suit dismissed by a federal judge.