The former Delaware computer repair shop owner who gave Rudi Giuliani and the FBI emails alleged to be from Hunter Biden’s laptop has again sued Twitter for defamation. John Paul Mac Isaac claimed that Twitter defamed him by censoring a New York Post story over its alleged use of “hacked materials.” Due to Twitter’s suppression of the story, Americans branded Mac Isaac a hacker, costing him business opportunities and ultimately leading him to shut down his business, the lawsuit claims.
“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 reuses, in accordance with the Mac Shop’s abandoned property police,” the lawsuit claims. “Plaintiff, as a direct result of Defendant Twitter’s actions and statements, is now widely considered a hacker.”
Mac Isaac filed a similar defamation lawsuit against Twitter late last year, seeking no less than $500 million in damages, but a judge at the Florida court in which he filed tossed the suit over lack of jurisdiction. The new lawsuit aims to address the jurisdiction issue, The Washington Examiner reported.
The new lawsuit claims defamation damages greater than $75,000 and demands that Twitter “make a public retraction of all false statements and to issue a public apology.”
Last October, The New York Post published a bombshell story that implicated then-candidate Joe Biden in his son Hunter’s notorious foreign business deals. Hunter Biden had notoriously cashed in on his father’s name with lucrative deals in Ukraine, China, and elsewhere — while Joe Biden spearheaded Obama administration policy in Ukraine and China.
The Post reported that it had received a copy of a laptop and a hard drive belonging to Hunter Biden from Giuliani, who claimed he obtained the hard drive from Mac Isaac. Mac Isaac said he also sent a copy to the FBI after Hunter Biden left the laptop behind after dropping it off for repairs in April 2019. Hunter Biden has not denied that it was his laptop.
The Post reported that emails showed evidence of a meeting between Hunter Biden, his father, and a top executive at a Ukrainian energy firm.
Both Facebook and Twitter moved to suppress the Post‘s story. Twitter claimed the story violated its “hacked materials” policy. Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey later admitted that his company’s actions were “unacceptable.”
Throughout the campaign, the legacy media adopted the angle that allegations about Joe Biden’s involvement in Hunter Biden’s business deals traced back to Russian disinformation. Outlets ignored the bombshell story, even after former Hunter Biden business partner Tony Bobulinski said Joe Biden was involved. A Media Research Center poll suggested that the suppression of this bombshell story may have handed Joe Biden the election.
After the election, Hunter Biden publicly acknowledged that he is facing a federal criminal investigation. The Biden administration asked all Senate-confirmed U.S. attorneys to resign but announced it is keeping John Durham as a special counsel on the Trump-Russia investigation and that it is retaining Delaware U.S. Attorney David Weiss, who is conducting the Hunter Biden tax inquiry.
While Dorsey acknowledged the censorship was a mistake, Twitter locked the Post‘s account for more than two weeks.
“Twitter knew or should have known that its statement that the New York Post’s story contained hacked materials would cause harm to the Plaintiff,” Mac Isaac’s lawsuit claims. “The statements allege that Plaintiff committed crimes including (but not limited to) computer hacking of the son of the Democratic Party nominee, now President, Joe Biden. The implication of an attempt to undermine American democracy and the 2020 presidential election is obvious.”
In late December, Judge Beth Bloom quickly tossed Mac Isaac’s first lawsuit. “The Court lacks subject matter jurisdiction,” she argued, because “the Complaint alleges that Plaintiff is a resident of Delaware and that Defendant is a Delaware corporation with an office in Dade County, Florida.”
In the new lawsuit, Mac Isaac clarifies that he lives in Colorado and he filed the lawsuit in Florida, arguing that Twitter operates in Florida, has Florida offices, and caused injury to Mac Isaac while doing business in Florida. The lawsuit also targets MadBits LLC, which the suit claims “exists solely to allow Defendant Twitter to operate its business and employ employees in the State of Florida.”
The lawsuit claims that “Twitter’s actions and statements had the specific intent to communicate to its users, including its Florida resident users, that Plaintiff is a hacker and/or hacked the published materials.”
John Paul Mac Isaac v. Twit… by Victor I Nava
Tyler O’Neil is the author of Making Hate Pay: The Corruption of the Southern Poverty Law Center. Follow him on Twitter at @Tyler2ONeil.
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