Hands Off—Even If It’s Not Mine
I’ve heard of interesting legal arguments, and had to craft some myself…but the tactics taken by Hunter Biden’s legal team this week may top them all.
They’ve asked for a Justice Department investigation into how his laptop and its material got into the hands of others, claiming it constitutes in essence theft and an invasion of privacy. They’ve also sent letters to those folks who came into possession of that material threatening civil lawsuits for millions of dollars due to release of the information.
Oh, and they’re not admitting the laptop and its trove of incriminating material is his…but that everyone better back off, in case it might be.
That’s like arguing before a jury, “my client did not shoot that woman…but if you find he did, then it was self defense.”
You cannot claim harm from someone using, or misusing, your property…if it’s not your property. Since there are apparently videos and documents that are incriminating, they don’t want to admit ownership of those…but you can’t deny ownership of part of the holdings on a computer but claim legal action based on the others.
This is a far cry from the whole thing being Russian disinformation, a laptop suspiciously abandoned at a repair shop…to “stop releasing my stuff or else”.
There are many ways in which one can feel some empathy for the son of the president…family tragedies and a substance problem come to mind. But legal broadsides like the ones we’ve discussed here of late make it hard to cut him much slack.
