Hunter Biden sues ex-Trump aide in LA for alleged computer hacking
Hunter Biden sued a former aide to former President Donald Trump Wednesday in Los Angeles, alleging in federal court that ex-White House staffer Garrett Ziegler violated federal computer laws by hacking into a laptop purportedly belonging to the president’s son.
The civil complaint accuses Ziegler, his company and 10 unnamed associates of obtaining “tens of thousands of emails, thousands of photos, and dozens of videos and recordings” belonging to Hunter Biden and spreading them online.
Biden contends that the defendant accessed and copied credit card details, financial and bank records, and “information of the type contained in a file of a consumer reporting agency,” according to the 14-page suit.
The suit calls Ziegler “a zealot who has waged a sustained, unhinged and obsessed campaign against Plaintiff and the entire Biden family for more than two years. While Defendant Ziegler is entitled to his extremist and counterfactual opinions, he has no right to engage in illegal activities to advance his right-wing agenda.”
A request for comment sent to Ziegler’s company, Marco Polo, was not immediately answered.
Hunter Biden, who lives in Los Angeles, does not know the precise manner by which Ziegler allegedly obtained his purported computer data, the suit says.
Earlier this year, Hunter Biden’s legal team called on the U.S. Justice Department to open criminal investigations into Ziegler and others who distributed the laptop’s contents.
The suit comes a day after House Speaker Kevin McCarthy authorized an impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden over allegations that he was involved in, and profited from, his son’s business dealings.