Four search warrants obtained in the course of the years-long investigation of first son Hunter Biden were made public Monday in response to a federal judge’s order.
Delaware US District Judge Maryellen Norieka, who is overseeing the federal weapons case against the now-53-year-old, ordered the warrants to be made public Friday in response to a request by an independent journalist.
The warrants shed new light on the feds’ legal basis for seizing Hunter Biden’s electronic devices, as well as the evidence used to build the two criminal cases against him.
Two warrants date from August 29, 2019, and July 10, 2020, and were obtained by tax authorities and the FBI to look into Hunter Biden’s Apple iCloud account.
The August 2019 warrant was to search a hard drive for information about the iCloud account and the July 2020 warrant was to search backups of Biden’s iPad and three of his iPhones — an iPhone X, iPhone 6S and an iPhone XR.
A third search warrant was obtained Dec. 13, 2019, to examine the now-first son’s infamous Apple MacBook Pro laptop and a hard drive — the same one containing a copy of Biden’s laptop that computer store owner John Paul Mac Isaac made to give to Rudy Giuliani’s lawyer Robert Costello, an earlier warrant reviewed by The Post shows.
A judge ordered that search warrants used in the criminal probes of Hunter Biden be unsealed. APMac Isaac had given permission to the FBI to access the hard drive and the laptop when he signed their control over to agents in a Dec. 9, 2019 consent form. The contents were deemed legally abandoned by Hunter after being left at the computer shop for more than 90 days.
All three warrants say the feds would seize any information showing Biden’s “tax evasion, willful failure to file tax returns and failure to pay income tax.”
The fourth warrant was obtained Dec. 4 last year and used to collect electronic evidence in connection with the gun case — nearly three full months after the indictment against the first son was unsealed.
The feds claimed they found cocaine on the pouch that held one of Hunter Biden’s guns. Delaware US District CourtNeither Biden’s defense team nor prosecutors led by special counsel David Weiss objected to the records being unsealed — though Weiss’ team has argued that the affidavits underpinning the search warrants should remain private.
Hunter Biden faces three felony charges for allegedly lying about his drug addiction when he bought a firearm five years ago.
He was also hit with a slew of charges in Los Angeles last month for allegedly evading $1.4 million in federal taxes between 2016 and 2019.
The cases were mounted against the younger Biden after a no-jail plea deal fell through unexpectedly during a July court hearing.
Hunter Biden is charged with lying about his drug use when he applied for the weapon.
Biden’s lawyers asked Noreika in December to toss the gun charges against him, claiming the prosecution violated the earlier agreement between the troubled first son and the feds.
Weiss’ office responded in scathing court papers on Jan. 16, claiming its case that Biden was on drugs when he got his gun and lied about it on a background check form was rock solid — with investigators finding traces of cocaine powder on the pouch of the Colt Cobra 38SPL revolver, which his sister-in-law-turned-lover Hallie Biden chucked in a trash can behind a Delaware grocery store in October 2018.
“Investigators literally found drugs on the pouch where the defendant had kept his gun,” prosecutors spelled out.
Hunter also admitted in his 2021 memoir “Beautiful Things” that he was addicted to crack cocaine at the time of the firearm drama, the feds pointed out.
A spokesperson with the Department of Justice declined to comment Monday, while Biden’s lawyers didn’t return a request for comment.
