Hunter Biden sues Rudy Giuliani and another lawyer over accessing, sharing of his personal data

WASHINGTON — Hunter Biden sued Rudy Giuliani and another attorney Tuesday, saying the two wrongly accessed and shared his personal data after obtaining it from the owner of a Delaware computer repair shop.

The lawsuit was the latest in a new strategy by Hunter Biden to strike back against Republican allies of Donald Trump, who have traded and passed around his private data including purported emails and embarrassing images in their effort to discredit his father, President Joe Biden.

The suit accuses Giuliani and attorney Robert Costello of spending years “hacking into, tampering with, manipulating, copying, disseminating, and generally obsessing over” the data that was “taken or stolen” from Biden’s devices or storage, leading to the “total annihilation” of Biden’s digital privacy.

The suit also claims Biden’s data was “manipulated, altered and damaged” before it was sent to Giuliani and Costello, and has been further altered since then.

They broke laws against computer hacking when they did, according to the lawsuit. It seeks unspecified damages and a court order to return the data and make no more copies.

Costello used to represent Giuliani, but recently filed a lawsuit against the former New York City mayor saying he did not pay more than $1.3 million in legal bills.

A spokesman for Giuliani did not immediately return a message seeking comment Tuesday morning. Costello declined to comment. In February, he told The Associated Press that a letter from Hunter Biden that requested a Justice Department investigation of him and others related to the laptop was a “frivolous legal document” that “reeks of desperation because they know judgment day is coming for the Bidens.”