Hunter Biden announced on X that he is publishing a serialized account of the past seven years on Substack, starting with an excerpt that directly confronts the laptop left at a Delaware repair shop in 2019.
The former president’s son described the device as central to a pre-existing scandal constructed around him, while acknowledging its contents documented his addiction.
In the post dated July 9, 2026, Biden wrote that he will release chapters every few days alongside a video series.
He linked to his Substack page, where he identifies himself as an artist, author, and recovery advocate.
The Repair Shop Device and Its Path to Public View
The laptop entered the public record after Biden left a MacBook Pro for repairs at The Mac Shop in Wilmington, Delaware, in April 2019 and never retrieved it.
Shop owner John Paul Mac Isaac said he copied the hard drive after 90 days when it became abandoned property. Mac Isaac contacted the FBI, which subpoenaed the device in December 2019.
He later provided copies to associates of Rudy Giuliani. The New York Post published its first story based on the material on October 14, 2020.
Biden’s excerpt disputes the laptop’s formal status. “The name is not accurate, the provenance was never established, and no court or forensic examiner ever certified the chain of custody that would have made it evidence rather than theater,” he wrote.
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He claimed efforts to assemble such material had been underway for more than a year before the shop incident.
Contents and Biden’s Accounting
Biden did not deny the data’s personal record. “Twenty years of my life, or a version of it,” he said. “Messages sent at hours that don’t belong to anyone sober. Photographs I would never have taken in daylight.
A record of every way a body can fail its owner when the owner has stopped trying to help.” He described it as the accumulation of daily addiction rather than a single dramatic event.
He added that he has confronted this inventory in recovery settings and accepts it as his own. “I am not denying any of it,” Biden stated. “That is not a small thing to say.” At the same time, he rejected broader narratives built around the files, saying he is “done letting them tell it.”
Forensic reviews of copies obtained directly from Mac Isaac have found the core user data consistent with normal use and showed no signs of tampering or fabrication in the primary set.
News organizations including CBS News and The Washington Post verified substantial portions, including thousands of emails. However, copies that changed hands after leaving the shop showed later modifications and access by others.
Political and Media Fallout in 2020
The Post’s reporting triggered immediate skepticism. Fifty-one former intelligence officials signed a letter stating the story had “all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation,” though they noted they had no direct evidence.
Social media platforms limited distribution of the article. The FBI, which had possessed the device for nearly a year, did not publicly confirm details at the time.
Subsequent investigations by congressional Republicans and forensic work established that the FBI had determined early that the laptop was not part of a Russian disinformation effort.
Hunter Biden faced federal tax and firearms charges in later years, with some evidence drawn from the files. He has maintained the materials were exploited for political purposes.
Biden’s Substack move comes as he has increased his public activity on X, discussing recovery and responding to critics.
The series promises his account of events that included intense scrutiny of his business dealings in Ukraine and China, alongside personal struggles following the death of his brother Beau.
Ongoing Questions of Evidence and Narrative
The laptop files have been cited in House Oversight Committee reports detailing Biden family business transactions that brought in millions of dollars.
Some emails referenced potential meetings and equity arrangements involving Joe Biden, though the extent of the elder Biden’s involvement remains disputed. Hunter Biden has long said he did not discuss business with his father.
