Meet the computer repairman at the center of New York Post's Hunter Biden laptop story

A Wilmington computer repairman who reportedly gave a copy of Hunter Biden’s laptop hard drive to Rudy Giuliani’s attorney, Brian Costello, spoke cryptically Wednesday about his arrangement last month with the Republican operative.

In a winding interview with the media, John Paul Mac Isaac, owner of The Mac Shop in Wilmington, recalled how in April 2019 a man who identified himself as Hunter Biden brought three liquid-damaged laptops to his small repair shop in the Trolley Square shopping center.

Only one was left for repair, he said. No one returned to retrieve it, he said.

In the subsequent year and a half, Mac Isaac said, a “whole lot of” players were involved in the story that ended with President Donald Trump circle’s taking possession of a copy of the laptop hard drive, less than two months before the presidential election.

Mac Isaac declined to name most of them.

The hard drive reportedly contained emails from 2015 that were the basis for a New York Post story published Wednesday morning claiming then-Vice President Joe Biden held a meeting with a high-ranking official at Burisma Holdings, a Ukrainian energy company that had employed his son Hunter Biden.

By Wednesday afternoon, the veracity of the claim was being challenged by Biden’s campaign, which said in a statement that no such meeting existed in the then-vice president’s official calendar.

“No meeting, as alleged by the New York Post, ever took place,” the campaign said.

Later in the day, Facebook and Twitter, in an unprecedented decision, both implemented policies limiting the sharing of the story.  

Facebook spokesman Andy Stone described the move as “part of our standard process to reduce the spread of misinformation,” pending a “fact-checker review.”

Mac Isaac repeatedly claimed he had shared the device with Costello because he was fearful for his safety. He did not explain how a move that would result in publicity would improve his security.

Mac Isaac also declined to state whether he approached Costello first with the hard drive or whether Giuliani’s team came to him.

When pressed on the question, he answered in vague near-soliloquy, stating, “When you’re afraid that you don’t know anything about the depth of the waters that you’re in, you kind of, you want to find a lifeguard.”

HISTORY:As Biden-Trump, Ukraine debate rages, related court cases land in Delaware

Last Sunday, Giuliani gave the New York Post reporters a copy of the hard drive that had been provided by Mac Isaac, the publication said.  

For nearly two years, Giuliani had been working on behalf of Trump to dig up information that could be damaging to Biden’s presidential campaign. Much of the effort has focused on finding a link between the former vice president's work in Ukraine and Hunter Biden's dealings with Burisma.

Giuliani has asserted repeatedly without evidence that Joe Biden had sought to protect Burisma when he pressured the Ukrainian president in 2015 into firing the country's prosecutor general.

Last year, Trump himself sought out such information from Ukraine’s new president – an act that led to his impeachment.  

U.S. Senate Republicans last month published a report based on an investigation that looked into the claims. While they found Hunter Biden's business made State Department official's work awkward, they found no evidence that Joe Biden acted inappropriately. 

In his comments Wednesday, Mac Isaac called the impeachment a sham.    

He said he began hearing about Burisma and Ukraine shortly after Hunter Biden had left his laptop at the Trolley Square repair shop. When a customer doesn't return after 90 days, Mac Isaac says he typically will reach out to them by phone. 

Asked if he called Hunter Biden, Mac Isaac said, "No comment."

“We have customers who abandon products all of the time," he said.  

During the subsequent summer and fall, Mac Isaac said he became alarmed after browsing through the computer's files. He claims he then spoke with an associate more versed than him in the law and in current events.

That unnamed person then contacted the FBI, Mac Isaac said.

Federal investigators from Wilmington and Baltimore then subpoenaed the laptop in December, Mac Isaac said.

Shortly after, they called Mac Isaac asking him to assist them, technically, in viewing the files on the damaged hard drive, he said. 

Mac Isaac admitted that the request raised his own suspicion, given that the FBI has its own technical staff.

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On Wednesday, a spokeswoman for Delaware’s federal prosecutors declined to confirm or deny the existence of any investigation into Hunter Biden's laptop.  

In the months after the alleged December subpoena, the FBI made no public statements about the contents of the hard drive. That discouraged Mac Isaac, who had hoped such information could vindicate Trump and prevent his impeachment.

At various points in his interview Wednesday, Mac Isaac insinuated the FBI had covered up the information, though he provided no evidence to verify such a suspicion.

He also stated repeatedly that he had believed that giving investigators the hard drive would amount to “following the chain of command," an idea that he failed to describe beyond the vague pronouncement.  

Contact Karl Baker at kbaker@delawareonline.com or (302) 324-2329. Follow him on Twitter @kbaker6.