Allegations that Hunter Biden stored photos of child pornography on his laptop computer have been forwarded to the FBI for investigation, the Washington Examiner has learned.
In an interview at the Trump Hotel in Washington, D.C., Tuesday evening, Rudy Giuliani, President Trump’s personal attorney, said Hunter Biden, son of Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden, engaged for years in potentially criminal sexual behavior, while Biden family members knew about it and tried to stop him.
The Washington Examiner did not see any such photographs and has not confirmed that they exist. Giuliani did not provide evidence of his allegations. The former mayor of New York did, however, show the Washington Examiner sexually explicit photographs on a laptop, which appeared to be of Hunter Biden and various adult women.
“The underage stuff has been given to the police. Let them decide. Let’s see what they’re going to do with it,” Giuliani said, adding, “we went there in person.”
Former NYPD Commissioner Bernie Kerik, who was also interviewed, said he and Giuliani spoke with a police captain and a lieutenant, saying, “We made an investigative referral … We took a bunch of photos — handed it to them. We took emails — handed it to them. Then we explained what we found, when we found it, how we found it, how we came into possession of the hard drive.”
Giuliani added: “I told them that they have to make a determination of what it is. You’re the cops — I’m not. … We gave them a copy of the hard drive. They have everything … We have a tape recording of it. They recorded me. I recorded them.”
Officer Grigori Lopez-Garcia, a public information officer with the New Castle County Police Department in Delaware, declined to answer the Washington Examiner’s specific questions Wednesday morning, saying only: “I can direct you to the Delaware Department of Justice” and that “the [Delaware] Department of Justice can better answer all of your questions on that incident.”
Mat Marshall, a spokesman for Delaware Attorney General Kathy Jennings, told the Washington Examiner on Wednesday that the New Castle County Police Department had brought Giuliani’s allegations to the attention of the state attorney general and that it had jointly decided to refer the claims and the copy of the hard drive to the FBI instead of investigating it itself.
“To kind of get to the heart of your question, yes, Mr. Giuliani came into New Castle County PD … So, Mr. Giuliani came in, I don’t know exactly what time, but I know it was on Monday, into New Castle County PD. He had a copy of a hard drive that he claimed was from Hunter Biden’s laptop and was asking New Castle County police to investigate. They called us, and we reached a joint decision to refer this to the FBI, given ongoing questions about the credibility and the veracity of Mr. Giuliani’s claims in the matter.”
When asked why the local police or state attorney general’s office wouldn’t look into the claims themselves, Marshall said that “there’s nothing I can really comment on the particulars as to what is or is not on the hard drive” but that, in his view, “referring it to the FBI is not doing nothing.”
Marshall said: “In Delaware, we frequently deal with child endangerment cases and take them very seriously, and there is nothing in the handling of this case that deviates from that.” He did not comment on the specific allegations made by Giuliani.
“Whatever is sort of happening with this from this point forward is with the FBI,” Marshall said. “I can tell you that the [Delaware] DOJ is not investigating Mr. Biden, never has been, and that we’re not in possession of — and I don’t know if it was on another thumb drive or if it was actually another hard drive, whatever, but we’re not in possession of whatever it was that Mr. Giuliani brought into New Castle County PD. The FBI has it. I can confirm to you that the FBI has it.”
Marshall emphasized that in Delaware, the attorney general has “all of the prosecutorial authority for the state,” including “criminal jurisdiction, which is why the police would normally call us, really in any situation where someone came forward to them believing that either a crime had occurred or trying to report anything.” Despite this broad criminal authority, he said that no investigators in Delaware are looking into Giuliani’s allegations.
“There is nobody in Delaware at a state or local level who is investigating right now,” Marshall said. “All of this has been referred over to the FBI, given that our understanding from multiple news reports is that they have ongoing investigations regarding the veracity of this entire story.”
Marshall later added that he was not aware of any official police report ever filed and reiterated that he believed the case was under the jurisdiction of the FBI.
The FBI told the Washington Examiner on Wednesday: “We have no comment, in keeping with our standard practice of neither confirming nor denying the existence of an investigation.”
A federal law enforcement official told the Washington Examiner on Tuesday that the Justice Department and FBI agreed with John Ratcliffe, the director of national intelligence, that there was no indication that the contents of the laptop were Russian disinformation, which has been suggested. A senior intelligence official emphasized, “There is absolutely zero evidence or intel that the laptop or the information contained therein is a Russian op.”
John Paul Mac Isaac, the computer repair shop owner who came into possession of the younger Biden’s computer and hard drive, told the New York Post that he made a copy of the hard drive and provided it to a lawyer for Giuliani as well as to federal investigators.
Giuliani was a staunch defender of Trump throughout the impeachment process and worked with numerous sources inside the United States and abroad, including Ukrainian lawmaker Andriy Derkach, to push allegations that Joe Biden had abused his power in Ukraine.
Bill Evanina, who leads the National Counterintelligence and Security Center, released an intelligence assessment in early August warning that Russia is “using a range of measures to primarily denigrate” Joe Biden, and that Derkach “is spreading claims about corruption — including through publicizing leaked phone calls — to undermine” the former vice president. The Treasury Department announced sanctions against Derkach this summer, but there is no evidence that the leaked emails from Hunter Biden were connected to Derkach or Russia, and the nation’s spy chief and a federal law enforcement official have both denied that it is Kremlin disinformation.
So far, neither the Biden campaign nor Hunter Biden has denied the veracity of any of the alleged emails on the laptop, though the elder Biden has called it part of a “smear campaign.” Hunter Biden’s lawyer did not respond to the Washington Examiner’s request for comment about Giuliani’s allegations.
