- The Daily Mail claimed to have verified Hunter Biden's laptop and published explicit images from it.
- The computer, said to have been left in a repair shop, was the subject of intense controversy last year.
- The outlet argued that it showed a side of Biden he hadn't been transparent about in his new book.
The Daily Mail claimed this week that forensics experts had verified the authenticity of messages and images in a laptop containing lurid details of Hunter Biden's private life.
DailyMail.com, the US-focused website run by the British tabloid, published a long article on Thursday detailing the laptop's contents.
The laptop became the subject of intense controversy before the November presidential election when the New York Post claimed in October that it contained emails harmful to Joe Biden, then the Democratic nominee.
The Post claimed that the materials from the laptop indicated that Joe Biden had been compromised by his son's business dealings in Ukraine, where he was on the board of the energy firm Burisma.
Critics said other emails contained evidence of influence-peddling by Hunter Biden in China. Neither claim was ever substantiated.
The story of how the Post and, later, the Daily Mail obtained the machine's contents is convoluted; it was said to have been abandoned in a Delaware computer shop, then handed to allies of Donald Trump.
Amid doubts about the authenticity of the information and briefings from US intelligence agencies that it was likely part of a Russian disinformation campaign, Facebook and Twitter introduced measures to stop the Post's story from being shared on the platforms.
But the Daily Mail said that the laptop was indeed Hunter Biden's and that it had obtained 103,000 text messages, 154,000 emails, and more than 2,000 photos from a copy of its hard drive.
The Daily Mail said the contents were verified by cyber forensics experts at Maryman & Associates, a California company that says on its website that it has 20 years of experience.
The Daily Mail said the company had matched the contents with email addresses, contents from an iPad, and an iPhone serial number connected to Hunter Biden.
The Daily Mail report came days after the publication of Hunter Biden's memoir, "Beautiful Things," in which he described his struggles with drug addiction.
A spokesperson for Biden's publisher, Simon & Schuster, told Insider that Biden would not be commenting on the report.
The Daily Mail claimed that the material from the laptop showed that Biden "chose not to divulge" parts of his life in the book. It published pictures that it said showed him with prostitutes and showed evidence of drug use.
There is no politically substantive new information in the report. It claims to contain text messages between Hunter Biden and his father; many show Joe Biden offering his son support.
The Daily Mail claimed that material from the computer showed that Hunter Biden had been able to evade criminal charges.
—Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) April 9, 2021
The report contained details of messages from Hunter Biden about a 2018 incident said to involve the Secret Service in which the wife of his late brother Beau, Hallie Biden, with whom Hunter was in a relationship, abandoned his firearm in a bin after an argument. The Secret Service denied any involvement.
Fox News hosts seized on the report on Thursday night, renewing their attacks on Hunter Biden and showing explicit photos from videos said to have been found on the laptop.
—Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) April 9, 2021
Federal authorities are investigating whether Hunter Biden committed tax crimes related to his work in Ukraine and China.
In an appearance on "Jimmy Kimmel Live" on Thursday to promote his book, Biden addressed some of the controversies, including the laptop. He had previously said he didn't know whether the device was his.
"Now look, I really don't know, and the fact of the matter is it's a red herring. It is absolutely a red herring," he said. "But I am absolutely, I think, within my rights to question anything that comes from the desk of Rudy Giuliani. And so I don't know is the answer."
Giuliani, Trump's lawyer, has said he played a part in getting the material on the laptop to journalists. Giuliani had long led a campaign to link Joe Biden to his son's dealings in Ukraine. Steve Bannon, a former Trump advisor, was also said to have been involved in handling the hard drive.
Last year, Trump allies seized on an email that appeared to show Hunter Biden trying to broker a meeting between a Burisma associate and Joe Biden while he was the vice president. No evidence has emerged to indicate that a meeting ever took place.
A spokesman told Politico last year that Joe Biden might have had an informal interaction with the Burisma associate but that any interaction would've been cursory.
