Hunter Biden sues Rudy Giuliani, attorney Robert Costello for "hacking" laptop data

Hunter Biden sued Rudy Giuliani and his former attorney Tuesday, claiming they hacked and manipulated data on an external hard drive associated with his laptop.

Giuliani and the attorney, Robert Costello, have frequently acknowledged accessing the hard drive's data. The lawsuit accuses them of having "dedicated an extraordinary amount of time and energy toward looking for, hacking into, tampering with, manipulating, copying, disseminating, and generally obsessing over data that they were given that was taken or stolen."

Giuliani has sought to paint Hunter Biden as a corrupt businessman, who cashed in on his father's political power. He and Costello have said they were provided the hard drive in 2020 by a Delaware computer repair shop owner who claims Hunter Biden dropped off the laptop the year before and never returned to retrieve it. In May, Hunter Biden also sued the computer repair shop owner, John Paul Mac Isaac, who has denied wrongdoing and said he obtained the laptop legally.

The lawsuit against Giuliani and Costello claims they used Hunter Biden's username to gain access to his data, making copies and sharing it with allies such as Steve Bannon. 

Giuliani and Costello did not immediately reply to requests for comment.