Repairman Who Exposed Hunter Biden’s Laptop Files Defamation Suit Against CNN, Politico, Daily Beast, and Adam Schiff
Isacc wants “at least $1 million in compensatory damages [and] punitive damages which will be the much bigger number and will be determined at trial.”
Computer repairman John Paul Mac Isaac caused a firestorm when he exposed Hunter Biden’s laptop before the 2020 election. The left and MSM went after him, dragged his name through the mud, and did everything they could to discredit him.
Twitter and Facebook censored the story from The New York Post. Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff and 51 others accused Isaac of peddling Russian disinformation.
Schiff said on CNN after the story hit: “Well, we know that this whole smear on Joe Biden comes from the Kremlin. That’s been clear for well over a year now that they’ve been pushing this false narrative about the vice president and his son.”
Isaac lost his business and endured 18 months of harassment. People threw food at his Delaware shop. He had to leave and moved to Colorado.
Joe Biden is in office so now everyone is like, “Oh, yeah. Everything is authentic concerning Hunter’s laptop.”
Isaac is not letting them off easy. He filed a defamation suit against CNN, The Daily Beast, Politico, and Schiff.
From The New York Post:
“After fighting to reveal the truth, all I want now is for the rest of the country to know that there was a collective and orchestrated effort by social and mainstream media to block a real story with real consequences for the nation,” the 45-year-old Mac Isaac told The Post.
“This was collusion led by 51 former pillars in the intelligence community and backed by words and actions of a politically motivated DOJ and FBI,” he continued. “I want this lawsuit to reveal that collusion and more importantly, who gave the marching orders.”
—
“Twitter initially labeled my action hacking, so for the first day after my information was leaked, I was bombarded with hate mail and death threats revolving around the idea that I was a hacker, a thief and a criminal,” Mac Isaac said.
Schiff, who chairs the House Intelligence Committee, “has some explaining” to do, Mac Isaac insisted.
“Without any intel, the head of the intel committee decided to share with CNN and its viewers a complete and utter lie,” Mac Isaac said. “A lie issued in the protection of a preferred presidential candidate.”
Isaac accused CNN, Politico, and The Daily Beast of hawking disinformation about the laptop:
“CNN’s broadcast of the false statement accuses the Plaintiff of committing an
infamous crime, i.e., treason by working with the Russians to commit a crime against the United States of America by attempting to undermine American democracy and the 2020 Presidential election,” the suit states.—
The Daily Beast claimed the laptop was “purloined” — which Mac Isaac says alleges that he stole the computer — in an article headlined “FBI Examining Hunter’s Laptop as Foreign Op, Contradicting Trump’s Intel Czar,” the suit states.
And in an infamous story on Politico, the website reported dozens of former intel officials believed the laptop to be “Russian disinfo.”
“The article was written by journalist Natasha Bertrand, who seemingly has a history of transforming speculation into fact in the stories upon which she reports,” the suit states.
Isacc wants “at least $1 million in compensatory damages [and] punitive damages which will be the much bigger number and will be determined at trial.”
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Comments
Let’s hope the damages result in a sum much, much bigger than the measly 1 million. Go for the jugular on these vile sons of bitches. Every last one of these filthy bastards should be taken for every nickel they have.
I would like this one to hurt
I am not a libel or slander legal expert, so I cant comment on the viability of the legal claim – though I would certainly like it to hurt & hurt big time
Well, he’s certainly not a public figure so ANYTHING that caused him damages that can be tied directly to these companies should survive the motion to dismiss.
He still has to identify a factual statement they made about him, prove that it was false, and that it damaged him.
Not being a public figure just means he doesn’t have to also prove that they knew it was false. It was their responsibility to verify it before publishing, and if they got it wrong they have to pay.
Here’s hoping the eventual judgment will keep Johnny in bonnie, flash tam o’ shanters for life. May it drive Schiff to drink so that his eyes cross and his adam’s apple explodes.
Always thought this was the right thing for him to do, but I guess it’s harder to find a lawyer when your livelihood has been systematically demolished.
Big fan of vengeance sometimes. Like this time.
I hope this guy wins a huge settlement like Nick Sandman.
I doubt Sandmann got large settlements.
Several five figure settlements count as ‘large’ to a 20 year old, and it’s highly likely that one or m0re of them were six figures.
The total after legal fees may not be retirement money but compared to national average wage..
Fact is that none of us will ever learn how much money Sandmann got. To the extent that he did get more than a relative token, I think it would’ve been out of fear on the media’s part that pretrial discovery would have shown their collusion, both among themselves and with communist advocacy groups.
I wish him luck, but I don’t see how he has a case. I don’t recall ever seeing any story from the defendants that made a false statement about him. Mostly they pretended he didn’t even exist, and certainly didn’t name him.
Saying that the laptop was “purloined” was false, but it was not a statement about him, so it did not defame him. It was the NY Post that said it got the laptop from him; the Daily Beast didn’t say so, and will undoubtedly claim that it meant specifically to deny that he was the Post’s source.
Ditto for Twitter’s initial claim that the information the Post ran was the result of “hacking”. It said nothing about him, and did not acknowledge that he had anything to do with it, so it can’t have been defaming him.
All Schiff said was that he believed the Kremlin was behind a “smear”. He said nothing about Mac Isaac, and his words could not be fairly understood to imply that he even existed, let alone that he’d knowingly colluded with Russia. He certainly didn’t accuse him of “treason”, since even if everything Schiff said were true that still wouldn’t be treason.
So I don’t see how this survives the first motion to dismiss. Which is a pity, because he has certainly suffered for doing the right thing, and you’d think someone should compensate him.
It just goes to show how wrong our slander and libel laws really are. Inferred statement are just as damaging as direct statements. Yelling the theater is filling with smoke and getting hot is the same as yelling fire…..
Oh, good grief!
Glenn Beck was right…arguing with idiots.
Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.
In response to Milhouse
You’re the idiot. I dare you to link to one false statement any of these defendants made against this person. I bet you can’t, because they didn’t make any. Their whole point was that he didn’t exist, that the laptop didn’t come from him but from the Kremlin.
Your reading is correct. I see no defamatory assertions of fact against the guy either. This by no means implies that I’m against him, but I don’t think his lawsuit will have legs.
Let’s go after these, shall we?
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But they didn’t do that. They posited he was a thief. That’s defamation.
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Except it implies he is the *hacker*. For going into what was now his legally owned laptop. Sorry, that IS ALSO defamation.
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Except it implies he’s a Russian Agent, or a dupe of one. ALSO defamation.
And with three strikes, you are out.
No, they did not posit he was a thief. Show me one story in which they said that. Go on, find one.
Nor did they imply that he was a hacker. Again, they didn’t mention him at all.
Ditto for the Russian agent. They didn’t say so, they didn’t mention him at all. And in any case it’s not defamation to say that someone was the dupe of a Russian agent.
You said it yourself. “It was swiped” stolen. EG: Thief.
You said it yourself. “It was a hacked.” You know, by an actor.
“It was Russian Disinformation”, hence Russian agent, or dupe.
NONE OF THESE ARE TRUE.
Therefore defamation. 🙂
~30~
Implied statements can be sued for. But the implication must be plain, so that any ordinary reader will pick up on it. Here there were no implications of anything about Mr Mac Isaac, because he was simply not part of their narrative. They omitted him and pretended he didn’t even exist. So how can they have defamed him?
Apparently there was enough implication for him to get death threats and personal attacks.
There is no way to know, let alone to demonstrate, that those had anything to do with anything said by the defendants. They didn’t refer to him in any way.
for everyone jumping Millhouse’s comments – One of the few voices of reason of all the commentators – Millhouse’s analysis of the legal position is correct. I cant comment on the factual basis such as whether any of the false statements implicated Issac, the plaintiff, though assuming Millhouse’s version of the facts of are correct, the legal analysis provided by millhouse is correct.
I personally would like to see defendents get burned at the stake, ( and I presume Millhouse feels the same).
Yes. The defendants deliberately lied in order to steal an election, and succeeded. But as far as I can tell they didn’t lie about the plaintiff, except by omission, i.e. they tried their best to write him out of the story altogether. They sold the public a narrative that simply did not include him.
The downvotes and yammering at him show that comment section wingnuts are no different and no smarter than comment section crypo-commies on the usual lefty sites. Milhouse could be wrong, just as anyone can be wrong, but he makes strong arguments. The nutcases here who are shooting at him (metaphorically) are exposed nerve endings who know little or nothing past their feeeeeelz.
“Isaac lost his business and endured 18 months of harassment. People threw food at his Delaware shop. He had to leave and moved to Colorado.”
Somehow, he was indeed adequately and particularly identified.
He identified himself.
It’s disheartening to see so many downvotes on (and acrimonious replies to) Milhouse’s comments on the legal facts.
This is supposed to be a law-centric blog in which the actual law (not what we might want the law to be) is central to the reporting and analysis.
If the facts regarding the news reporting about the computer repairman do not support a successful lawsuit, then I want to know that. And as a non-lawyer I rely on lawyers and law professors to point out things that I may not notice or may not fully understand.
You’re an idiot. I’ve already answered this twice. Here’s a third time. Find me ONE STATEMENT, by any of the defendants, this THIS PERSON was a thief, an “actor” (whatever you mean by that), or a Russian agent, or even a dupe (though if they had said that it would not be defamation). You won’t find it, because to the best of my recollection they never said it. And therefore he has no case at all, and will be dismissed immediately.
“The laptop was stolen” is not defamation, because it’s not a statement that he stole it. As far as their reporting was concerned he was NOT PART OF THE STORY.
Oops, that was to Treguard. I don’t know how it ended up at the top level.
That’s all right. You pretty much call all of us idiots at one time or another. Might as well get it out of the way as a general statement.
Who is the conduit for the claim that the laptop was Russian disinformation? CNN et al: The laptop is Russian disinformation…spread by whom? The public was not aware of the laptop until Mr. Isaac presented the information.
Why didn’t the judge immediately through out Johnny Depp’s case against Amber Heard? She never used his name in the Post article.
False. The public was not aware of the laptop until the New York Post presented the information. And it got that information from Giuliani. Mac Isaac did not present anything to the public, and the public had no direct knowledge of his existence, until he identified himself as Giuliani’s source. None of the defendants ever mentioned him, directly or indirectly. They did their best to pretend that he didn’t even exist.
Especially the Russian novelist Adamovichyy Schifftski.
For Millhouse:
-https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/19/opinion/trump-campaign-rudy-giuliani.html
-https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/22/us/politics/hunter-biden-laptop.html
-https://lite.cnn.com/en/article/h_7e5fcdffc7051ba1d73b135ee16f5b3b
1. The first link does not defame Mac Isaac. On the contrary, it blames the whole thing on Giuliani, and only mentions him as some mook Giuliani dredged up in order to create a false explanation for how he got the drive.
“Giuliani claims his lawyer got it from a Delaware computer repair shop owner, John Paul Mac Isaac, who says someone he thinks was Hunter Biden dropped off three laptops and never picked them up. Mac Isaac gave a halting interview to several journalists last week; The Daily Beast published the audio, so you can hear for yourself as his story shifts over the course of an hour.”
In other words, according to the NYT, you shouldn’t believe this guy. He had nothing to do with it. Giuliani fed him a story and he’s trying to repeat it, but keeps changing things because it’s not true. That doesn’t exactly paint Mac Isaac in the best light, but it doesn’t accuse him of any crime.
2. The second link makes no accusations at all, against Mac Isaac or anyone else, but simply tries to persuade readers that it’s all a red herring so they should pay it no attention. It reports exactly what Mac Isaac said, without accusing him of anything, but in a way that makes it all sound somehow fishy. No defamation there.
3. The third link, like the first, blames Giuliani for the whole thing, and strongly implies that the true origin of the drive is that the KGB manufactured it and their Ukranian agent handed it to Giuliani. Mac Isaac is first mentioned near the end of the story, as someone who claims to be the source, but his story keeps changing and is unreliable, presumably (the reader is supposed to think) because he really had nothing to do with it. His claim that the FBI had taken the drive is likewise dismissed as a fantasy. Again, no defamation there.
Again, Milhouse, YOU have.
By saying the Laptop is stolen, you are IMPLYING that the repairman is the thief (and that he lied about Mr. Biden dropping it off). YES: This is defamation.
By saying the Laptop may have been hacked, you are IMPLYING (hell, since the Laptop was in his possession, you’re outright stating it.) that the repairmen went in illegally. YES: This is defamation.
By saying the Laptop was Russian disinformation, you are IMPLYING that the repairmen was a Russian Agent. YES: This is defamation. (If you want to argue it was the 50 odd Security folks who called it Russian Disinformation who did that. I’ll buy that argument. But… really?)
I don’t think I need to find examples. You’re doing it yourself.
I am way, way, way against defamation, and have come to believe that New York Times v Sullivan needs another look. That said, as disgusted as I am by several aspects of the laptop saga, I’m just not seeing a defamation case let alone a verdict. I predict this lawsuit will never get past a summary dismissal.
Milhouse is talking about what the law is, others are talking about what they want the law to be.
BINGO! Milhouse, like all of us, has no lock on the truth, but he clearly has an intelligent, experienced take on the laws. Fer chrissakes, fellow wingers, a bunch of you are no different than the diaper-clad baby yammers on the left. Take a deep breath kids.
Does anyone know where this defamation action is venued, and who the judge is?
Rather than asking to collect a large settlement, he should ask the court to force all the individuals involved to state on video, and to pay for playing those videos as commercials, that they deliberately lied because they place partisan politics above their country.