Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani says he spent three weeks authenticating the materials on a copy of a hard drive that once allegedly belonged to Hunter Biden, the son of Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden.
The contents of the drive are the subject of a series of explosive reports by the New York Post that shed further light on Hunter Biden’s dealings with China and Ukraine.
Giuliani, President Donald Trump’s personal attorney, told The Epoch Times that he and his attorney, Robert Costello, checked some of the written notes in the drive against samples of Hunter Biden’s handwriting, matched details about undisclosed meetings with confidential information they had already obtained from other sources, and verified the email addresses in the data trove, among other steps. Giuliani said the drive contains roughly 800 of Hunter Biden’s personal photos, including some which Giuliani alleges show illegal acts. The Epoch Times could not independently verify the claim as Giuliani declined to provide a copy of the files.
Costello allegedly received a copy of the hard drive in August from the owner of a Mac repair shop in Wilmington, Delaware, and handed it to Giuliani three weeks ago, according to the former mayor. Trump’s former chief strategist, Stephen Bannon, negotiated an exclusive deal with the Post and Giuliani handed a copy of the drive over to the newspaper on Oct. 10. The Post conducted its own authentication effort, Giuliani said.
The exclusive deal with the Post gave the newspaper a head start on covering the material but allows Giuliani to eventually begin disclosing the material to other media, the former mayor said.
Along with the copy of the drive, the owner of the Mac repair shop gave Costello a receipt dated April 12, 2019, which he allegedly generated on the day Hunter Biden dropped off a water-damaged laptop and requested the data to be recovered. After Biden failed to pick up the laptop for 90 days and the shop owner, John Paul Mac Isaac, was unable to reach him, Mac Isaac took possession of the laptop and reviewed its contents. Mac Isaac also gave Costello a copy of an alleged subpoena for the laptop, dated Dec. 9, 2019, which the FBI allegedly used to seize the laptop the same month.
An FBI and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Delaware declined to confirm the authenticity of the subpoena. Hunter Biden’s lawyer did not respond to a request for comment. Mac Isaac did not respond to requests for an interview.
Despite being convinced about the authenticity of the contents of the drive, Giuliani would not rule out the possibility, in case “the shop owner was lying,” that the laptop may have been brought in by and belonged to someone other than Hunter Biden.
According to an audio published by The Daily Beast, Mac Isaac said a medical problem prevented him from recognizing the person who brought in the laptop. He also offered shifting accounts about what happened with the laptop and sidestepped questions about the timeline of events. There was a five-month gap between Mac Isaac taking possession of the laptop and turning it over to the FBI; and an eight-month gap between the handoff to the FBI and the first contact with Giuliani’s lawyer.
The Post’s first story on Hunter Biden quickly became the top hit on the newspaper’s website and, after Twitter and Facebook took unprecedented steps to prevent people from sharing the article, rose to the national spotlight as prominent figures expressed outrage over the apparent censorship ahead of the election. The article described alleged Hunter Biden emails suggesting that in late March or April of 2016 he introduced his father, Joe Biden, who was the vice president at the time, to a top executive from Ukrainian gas firm Burisma. At the time, Hunter Biden held a paid position on the board of Burisma.
“Dear Hunter, thank you for inviting me to DC and giving an opportunity to meet your father and spent [sic] some time together. It’s realty [sic] an honor and pleasure,” the alleged email reads.
The executive, Vadym Pozharskyi, was in Washington not long before the alleged April 17, 2015, email was sent, according to an itinerary released by the Senate Homeland Security Committee. The Biden campaign told Politico that there is no formal record of a meeting, but did not rule out that Biden and Pozharskyi met informally.
Hunter Biden’s work for Burisma drew attention during the impeachment proceedings against Trump in 2019, which stemmed from a call between the U.S. president and the president of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky. On the call, Trump asked Zelensky to look into the firing of Ukraine’s top prosecutor, Victor Shokin. Joe Biden has been filmed publicly bragging about forcing Shokin’s ouster by threatening to withhold $1 billion in U.S. loan guarantees to Ukraine. Shokin, in a sworn statement, has said that he was fired due to pressure from Biden because he was investigating Burisma.
On Oct. 15, the day after the initial report on the alleged Ukraine emails, the Post published an article detailing alleged emails between Hunter Biden and his associates about a venture involving a since-defunct Chinese energy company. One of the alleged emails, dated May 13, 2017, lists a prospective position for Biden as “Chair / Vice Chair depending on agreement with CEFC,” an acronym referring to the former Shanghai-based conglomerate CEFC China Energy Co. The alleged email, titled “Expectations,” also lists what appears to be a proposed equity breakdown between Biden, his associates, and a share held by Hunter Biden for “the big guy.”
In another alleged email dated Aug. 2, 2017, Hunter Biden describes a $30 million deal he negotiated with Ye Jianming, then-chairman of CEFC who has since vanished in China. Ye rapidly rose to prominence in China and abroad in the years leading up to 2017, but his prospects crashed in 2018 after U.S. authorities accused his firm and associates of bribing high-level African officials. CEFC was declared bankrupt earlier this year.
The Post also published an alleged attorney engagement letter between Hunter Biden and Patrick Ho, one of Ye’s top lieutenants. Biden was to receive $1 million for “counsel to matters related to US law and advice pertaining to the hiring and legal analysis of any US Law Firm or Lawyer,” alleged letter states. Ho subsequently served three years as part of the African bribery case and was deported to Hong Kong. Hunter Biden told The New Yorker that he agreed to represent Ho after Ye told him that he was concerned that “U.S. law-enforcement agencies were investigating” Ho.
Zachary Stieber contributed to this report.
From The Epoch Times
