Hunter Biden’s legal team has lodged a civil action against Garrett Ziegler, a past Trump White House aide, accusing him of illegal hacking activities that infringe federal computer privacy statutes.
The case, brought forward in a federal court in California, alleges that Ziegler is guilty of accessing, altering, tampering with, and damaging computer data that does not belong to him. This data, Ziegler claims, was obtained via hacking into Hunter Biden’s iPhone, and through an examination of a hard drive purported to belong to Biden’s laptop.
During his time in the Trump administration, between February 2019 to January 2021, Ziegler worked as a policy analyst, and later served in the Office of Trade and Manufacturing Policy, under the supervision of former Trump trade counselor Peter Navarro.
This litigation is indicative of a more assertive approach being adopted by Hunter Biden’s camp against his critics. In line with this approach, Biden, son of President Joe Biden, has enlisted the expertise of attorney Abbe Lowell. Lowell has since been proactive in calling for investigations into Biden’s adversaries, alongside serving as his counsel in a federal lawsuit and a child support disagreement.
Ziegler, the lawsuit claims, has since dedicated the majority of his time and energy post the White House stint, on endeavours to gain access to devices allegedly owned by Hunter Biden.
The suit goes on to highlight a recent incident where Ziegler purportedly proclaimed on social media that any future attempts by the plaintiff to engage him legally would be met with violence.
An offer for comment has been extended to Ziegler’s counsel by CNN.
Prior this year, Hunter Biden’s camp solicited the Justice Department for initiation of a criminal investigation into Ziegler and others associated with the dissemination of the laptop’s contents.