Hunter Biden on Tuesday filed a civil lawsuit accusing Rudolph W. Giuliani and attorney Bob Costello of computer fraud and violating his privacy in releasing information found on a laptop the president’s son had left at a Delaware repair shop.
 
The lawsuit, filed in Los Angeles federal court, accuses the two defendants of “hacking into, tampering with, manipulating, copying, disseminating and generally obsessing over data that they were given that was taken or stolen” from Hunter Biden’s electronic devices.

“Defendants are among those who have been primarily responsible for what has been described as the ‘total annihilation’ of Plaintiff’s digital privacy,” the lawsuit says. “They are also among those who have been primarily responsible for the ‘total annihilation’ of Plaintiff’s data.”

In 2020, Mr. Giuliani, who was serving as then-President Trump’s personal lawyer, delivered the contents allegedly gleaned from Hunter Biden’s laptop to the New York Post before the presidential election.

The Post published stories based on that data, which linked the first son to shady business dealings and raised questions of influence peddling by Hunter Biden.
 
As Mr. Giuliani’s lawyer, Mr. Costello received a copy of the data mined from the laptop.

Hunter Biden does not acknowledge in the lawsuit that the laptop was his, but does say that some of the data “obtained, copied and proceeded to hack into” belonged to him. The lawsuit also alleges that the data was “manipulated, altered and damaged before it was copied and sent” to Mr. Giuliani and Mr. Costello.

The lawsuit accuses Mr. Giuliani and Mr. Costello of violating California privacy laws and the federal Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, which makes it a crime to access computer data without authorization.

• Jeff Mordock can be reached at jmordock@washingtontimes.com.