A fresh legal event has rekindled the debate about the dreaded “laptop from hell.” Hunter Biden has filed a lawsuit against Rudy Giuliani and Robert Costello, the former attorney for Giuliani.

In the case, Giuliani is accused of breaking into and altering data on the well-known laptop owned by Hunter Biden, as well as of breaking federal computer regulations.

An important chapter in a three-year tale that initially garnered media attention during the 2020 U.S. presidential election is being marked by this judicial dispute.

The Accusations

Hunter Biden’s legal team has accused Robert Costello and Rudy Giuliani of breaking the federal Computer Fraud and Abuse Act by getting access to Hunter’s laptop’s hard drive.

U.S. District Court of Central California is the venue for the case, which claims Giuliani “hacked and manipulated” data on the external hard drive of the laptop, causing a “total annihilation” of Hunter Biden’s “digital privacy.”

Giuliani and Costello are accused in the lawsuit, which was filed on Tuesday, of being compulsively active in searching for, stealing, altering, duplicating, and sharing data that they purportedly stole from Hunter Biden’s devices and storage platforms. In addition, the lawsuit claims that these acts violate state and federal laws prohibiting computer hacking and were done to further personal and political purposes.

The Controversial Journey of the Laptop

Rudy Giuliani first acquired control of the laptop at issue in this court dispute in August 2020. It was acquired from John Paul Mac Isaac, the proprietor of a computer repair business in Delaware, who stated that in April 2019, Hunter Biden “abandoned” the computer at his establishment.

According to Mac Isaac, he gave Giuliani access to the laptop’s contents after Hunter was unable to get it back in 90 days.

After purported materials from this laptop were leaked to the New York Post in October 2020, just weeks before the U.S. presidential election that pitted then-President Donald Trump against then-candidate Joe Biden, the story grabbed national attention. Throughout the election campaign, there was a great deal of discussion and investigation over the legitimacy of the leaked materials.

Giuliani’s Recognization

Hunter Biden’s laptop has been in Giuliani’s possession for a while now. He talked candidly about copying data from the laptop to his own computer in a video podcast dated February 2023. He also claimed to have accessed, examined, and altered the transferred material. A major component of Hunter Biden’s case against him is these admissions.

Legal Consequences

Allegations of violations of the California Computer Data Access and Fraud Act and the federal Computer Fraud and Abuse Act serve as the basis for Hunter Biden’s lawsuit against Rudy Giuliani and Robert Costello. These legal measures are intended to guard against illegal access to and alteration of data and computer systems.

Hunter’s team filed a complaint against John Paul Mac Isaac and Garrett Ziegler, a former Trump White House aide, for similar charges, shortly after making this one.