John Paul Mac Isaac, the Delaware computer repair shop owner who alerted the FBI to Hunter Biden’s infamous laptop before ultimately taking it to Rudy Giuliani, said he has no regrets about the actions he took.
“If I had the choice to do it again, I would absolutely do it again,” Mac Isaac told the New York Post. “I was raised since 9/11 to believe if you see something you say something.”
Except, what he said fully triggered powerful forces including federal agencies and their media arms which set out to ruin his life.
Mac Isaac said he was subjected to relentless harassment from Big Tech, the IRS and other government agencies.
“I was getting a lot of death threats,” Mac Isaac told the New York Post. “I had to have a Wilmington trooper parked in front of my shop all the time.
“There were multiple situations where people came in and you could tell they were not there to have a computer fixed. And if there were not other people in the shop, I don’t know what would have happened. I was having vegetables, eggs, dog s–t thrown at the shop every morning.”
Mac Isaac, 45, said his life was completely upended after the laptop contents became public in a series of reports by the New York Post in October 2020.
After the Post stories broke, Twitter and Facebook moved to suppress the information.
Mac Isaac now faces bankruptcy after a judge dismissed his lawsuit against Twitter with prejudice and ordered him to pay the tech giant’s legal bills — a figure he said was roughly $175,000.
In a video documentary, 'The Truth', Mac Isaac tells his story. The following transcript was provided by the Marco Polo Research Group headed by former Trump White House official Garrett Ziegler:
My name is John Paul Mac Isaac. Initially, I was reluctant to tell the media about my family’s involvement with reaching out to the FBI. My efforts to protect my family from the press ultimately were used by the press to discredit me and discredit my account of my interactions with the FBI. This is my opportunity to clear things up. - - -
(Male Reporter): See that’s what we were talking about earlier. You did something; you made some action that tipped the FBI off… Or maybe you didn’t. Maybe Hunter Biden told the FBI, which I doubt.
(Female Reporter): I’m also confused because you told me that you did reach out to the FBI and that they didn’t really do much with it. So was it that they came to you or you went to them? - - -
By the end of the summer, and feeling pressured by the events of the news, I turned to one of the smartest and most trusted people I know: my father. During a return trip from a gun ship reunion in Salt Lake City, I had ample time to explain to my father what I had seen and voice my concerns.
We decided that the best course of action was to contact the FBI and persuade them to collect the abandoned equipment to provide some level of security should someone come looking for it. We decided, out of an abundance of caution, that my father would reach out to the FBI through their Albuquerque, New Mexico field office, and, hopefully, get a feeling of how receptive they would be to helping us.
So on October 9, 2019, my father walked into the FBI office in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and spoke to an agent—this is what my father, a retired colonel of thirty years in the United States Air Force, described to me [as] the most humiliating experience of his entire life. My father spoke to an agent that refused to give his name. Then, that agent, after hearing my father’s concerns, promptly made a copy of the paperwork, told my father to lawyer up, and get out of his office. Defeated, my father and I spent the next three weeks wondering what we were going to do.
And then, on November 1, my father received a phone call. On November 1, 2019, Agent Joshua from the FBI reached out to my father, requesting to contact me. My father collected his contact information and passed it on to me. A quick Google search revealed that Agent Joshua had been making a name for himself busting child predators. I instantly trusted and respected Agent Joshua and instructed my father to pass along my contact information.
Soon, Agent Joshua called and requested a time to meet and talk about my concerns. I agreed and on November 21, 2019, Agent Joshua arrived at my home with an additional agent, Agent Mike. When seated in my living room, Agent Joshua asked if I had seen any child pornography on the client’s laptop. I responded that I had seen a lot of questionable material but I wasn’t paying that close of attention to see if there were children involved, but it was a concern based on the personal and private nature of the material.
When asked what I was concerned about, I told them it was the personal material as well as financial and political information that could be criminal or illegal and it should be in the hands of the authorities. I was also concerned about individuals, both foreign and domestic, that might seek to do me harm based on what I knew and what I was in possession of—and I just wanted it out of my shop.
They told me that they’d have to contact their legal team to see if this was something that they could take possession of, but they could not make any promises. Agent Mike texted me and requested a timeline of the events leading up to me reaching out to the FBI. I responded and awaited further instructions.
About a week later, agents advised me that they wanted to come into the shop to make a forensic copy of the laptop but, unfortunately, they would be unable to take possession or custody of the laptop at that time. A little disappointed, and a little reluctant, I agreed to meet them at the shop on December 9, 2019. …
(continued) … I first received a phone call in the morning around 9:50 from Agent Mike requesting that I text him the serial number of the hard drive that the client had abandoned. Both agents arrived at the shop at around 11 a.m. Agent Joshua immediately handed me a subpoena commanding me to appear before a Grand Jury. A note in the middle of the first page stated, “In lieu of personal appearance, please see Attachment A.” Attachment A included two items: the MacBook Pro with the serial number and the external hard drive with the serial number that was requested an hour earlier.
I was ecstatic. I was getting everything that I wanted. I was getting protection from the FBI. I felt safe. I finally was getting this abandoned laptop and its questionable data out of my shop. And, if there was evidence there, that it was finally in the hands of proper authorities.
For the first time in months, I was at ease—and I thought that this whole ordeal might finally be over.
My name is John Paul Mac Isaac. And this is the story of what happened after I gave the laptop to the FBI. - - - (Male Reporter): Well, it sounds like you just said you sought out help from several people and, so, was there an intermediary? (Female Reporter):… stakes are incredibly high and hedging on this question... it could impact the safety of a lot more people than just the people you care about. - - - It wasn’t long after my December ninth interaction with the FBI that events transpired that would cause my previous concerns for my safety to return.
Agent Mike instructed me that—moving forward—we should only communicate through text message. No email. He also said that, if somebody came into the shop looking for the laptop, that I was to contact them immediately and stall them for twenty-four hours and agents would return the equipment.
When leaving the shop that day, Agent Mike turned to me and said, “In our experience, nothing ever happens to those that don’t talk about these things.” And, at that time, I was just so happy that the laptop was leaving my shop, I didn’t hardly notice the odd instructions or the thinly-veiled threat.
Shortly after agents collected the laptop, I received a call from Agent Mike requesting assistance in accessing the drive. I assisted them by providing phone support until they were able to access the drive and its data. I thought that it was odd that they required my help and I was starting to get uncomfortable, but I figured that I had no choice but to cooperate with the FBI.
About two weeks later, I got a call at the shop from Agent Mike seeing if anybody had been in about the laptop. I said no and that was the last I heard from the FBI.
By that time, I started to reflect on my interactions and I was getting the feeling that the FBI’s agenda no longer included my safety. Why was this laptop not in a lab being professionally inspected? Why was it not admitted as evidence during the impeachment?
I was getting the feeling that the FBI was holding onto it until the owner returned for it and that they cared more about protecting it than they were in protecting me. And, ultimately, I was—when it came to my safety—worse off than I was before.
Towards the end of the summer of 2019, before my father reached out to the FBI, I did probably the smartest thing I’ve ever done in my entire life—and that was to make a copy of the drive. I knew I had to get my story told and I knew I had to find a voice to tell it.
At this time, I was trying to have a business and I was trying to have a life. I knew that I needed to study the material on the drive and, seeing how there’s no expectation of privacy when it comes to things you have abandoned, I chose a couple emails and files that I thought were topical and that would raise concern. …
(continued) … Once again, I enlisted my father—and later my uncle—and armed them with the tools needed to go out and share my story. - - - (Mac Isaac’s Father): I am Col. Steve Mac Isaac, United States Air Force Ret. I was basically out of the story until a few days after the FBI had taken legal custody of the laptop. He did call me a few days later and said he thought it was strange that the FBI was calling him and asking him for technical support on the Mac laptop. And I said, “Yes, that’s very strange” because the FBI has one of the best forensic labs in the world—it’s outside Washington D.C. and I had assumed, wrongly, that the day that they took custody of the laptop it would be on an airplane and down there for proper disposition. So, once again, I thought that the FBI had turned their back on us and they were trying to solve it in-house or just find out what was on the computer locally.
So then I decided the next best thing to do would be to go to Congress. There were two particular people I admired: one in the Senate and a young lad that was over on the Judicial Committee in the House of Representatives. I attempted to get through to both of those offices. I got the same thing: "If you’re not willing to talk to me, then you can talk to one of our lawyers." I said, “You don’t understand. I’m not supposed to talk to you. I can only talk to a lawyer. Sorry, have a great day." About this time, I upped the ante with my brother-in-law, Col. Ron Scott, and said, “OK. We’ve got to do something. We’re running out of time.”
(Mac Isaac’s Uncle): My name is Col. Ronald J. Scott, Jr., United States Air Force, retired after 34 years of service (to include my time at the Air Force Academy). J.P. Mac Isaac is my nephew. J.P.’s father, Col. Steve Mac Isaac, reached out to me towards the end of 2019 to fill me in on the laptop and hard drive and their efforts to get the drive into the proper hands once they discovered its contents.
On May 8, 2020, I posted a message on the White House contact page indicating that I had access to potential national security and criminal information and requested a referral to the Justice Department. No response.
On May 13, 2020, I reached out to an investigative journalist in response to an article he published regarding Blue Star Strategies. No response.
On May 18, 2020, I sent documentation via email and through the postal system. This consisted of a one page summary of three documents on the hard drive and a copy of the redacted FBI subpoena. No response.
On May 29, 2020, I sent a similar one page summary and redacted subpoena via facsimile to a Senator’s office. No response.
I think it’s a combination of a country that’s so paranoid to be fed misinformation combined with other major world issues at the time that caused my cries for help to fall on deaf ears. I was running out of time and I was running out of options and I had one last hope. - - - I still can’t believe everything that has happened. I wouldn’t have to be here telling my story if people had done their job and followed the law. I would still have a business. I would still have a place in my community. I would still have my friends. I would still be in my home—safe!—sleeping in my own bed.
But I no longer have any of these things because people refused to do their job.
After the FBI abandoned me, and at great cost, I tried to get the truth to the highest levels of our government. I would discover that that cost—there’s no end to it.
I never wanted to cause any additional pain to the client. From what I had seen, he had been suffering for quite some time and I wasn’t going to add to that. My goal was to get the criminal material to law enforcement and to the Department of Justice. And never to the press or to profit off of selling the story to a tabloid.
I felt bad for him because I fully understand what it’s like to have a powerful father impose his will upon his son. But my father’s will included a sense of honor and respect, dignity, and pride—not only for myself but for my family and my country.
When I was young, I admired my father for his courage and his bravery. And, recently, his two lessons have proved invaluable to getting me through my ordeal and I wish every son had a father like mine.
I was twenty-five years old on September 11, 2001, and, after the attacks on our Nation, I remember reading and hearing, “If you see something, you say something.” And I never forgot those words and why they exist. They’re a tool for protecting the nation and its citizens. And it’s the responsibility of the citizen to sound the alarm when there’s danger. And I saw danger.
I remember thinking to myself: if I get exposed, there’s the potential that I could lose everything and I thought that I would actually be O.K. with losing everything as long as the truth got out and I was safe and the people I cared about were safe.
So, here I am. My business is closed. I’m forced from my home and I’m waiting for the next chapter in my life to unfold. But I know that, if it were to happen again, and I was put in a similar situation, I would sacrifice it all and again sound the alarm.
