OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
The news just got worse for Hunter Biden, the son of President Joe Biden, and his nightmare laptop.
A cyber forensics expert has recovered around 168,000 deleted files from the laptop. The expert was commissioned by The Washington Examiner, the news organization reported.
“Many of the deleted files were system files, application files, or duplicates of user files stored elsewhere on the laptop,” it said.
But that was not all that was recovered.
Some of the recovered data, however, shed light on his financial dealings in 2018 and early 2019, as well as his personal dealings during that time frame. Also recovered from the drive were deleted pictures of government ID cards for two individuals linked to President Joe Biden’s son.
Konstantinos “Gus” Dimitrelos, a former Secret Service agent who has testified in over 100 classified, criminal, and civil matters, retrieved the deleted files from unallocated space on the hard drive using a technique called data carving.
“In order for user-created data — including personal photographs, bank records, invoices, business records, third-party data such as the driver’s licenses of other persons, chat conversations, and medical records, as examples — to exist within the unallocated hard drive space, the computer user would have had to manually delete the files,” the former Secret Service agent said. “Any Robert Hunter Biden recovered files in unallocated space was there as a result of deletions by the user ‘roberthunter.’”
He examined the hard drive copy that The Examiner has and confirmed that Hunter Biden “was the only person responsible for the activity on this hard drive and all of its stored data.”
Many of the files that were recovered were attachments to text messages he had received, including one that showed Hunter holding a vape pen.
“That’s the weed vape pen that a Russian Escort left in my room before I came here this time,” he said to an unknown person on Jan. 30, 2019.
Hunter Biden also received an invoice from his psychiatrist, former Fox News contributor Keith Ablow, showing he had racked up $13,600 worth of psychotherapy charges in November and December 2018. Hunter Biden had requested that Ablow send him the invoice in a Dec. 10, 2018, text.
Hunter Biden’s legal team told CBS News in May that it obtained a laptop he left at Ablow’s office in February 2019. It says the laptop is “the Rosetta Stone” that can prove if copies of Hunter Biden’s drive that have circulated through the media have been altered. But the copy of the drive obtained by the Washington Examiner has user files dating through March 17, 2019.
Dimitrelos also recovered numerous deleted screenshots of text message conversations with Hunter Biden’s ex-wife, Kathleen Buhle.
One of the screenshots shows that Hunter Biden wired $2,900 to Buhle through Apple Pay on April 19, 2018. He sent Buhle the screenshot later that day after she suggested he hadn’t sent the payment.
Another recovered screenshot is a message from Buhle’s phone showing that David Barboza of the New York Times had reached out and asked her: “I wonder if I can call you about a story I am writing about a Chinese company you may have heard about. I don’t know that you know for sure. But someone suggested I ask you.”
One of the deleted files was a screenshot Joe Biden sent to Hunter via text on March 6, 2019.
“What would you like me to do. Dad,” Joe Biden texted Hunter after sending the screenshot.
Hunter than responded with a long message about the issues he was having with his former business partner Eric Schwerin.
“Can i help with Eric,” he said Hunter Biden in a message the next day. “I have absolutely no hesitancy.”
“I’ll handle Eric,” Hunter responded.
