Hunter Biden Laptop Update!

Judicial Watch Sues for FBI Records on Hunter Biden’s Infamous Laptop

The Hunter Biden saga drags on as the government clings to details about his laptop.

In our latest effort to pry this information loose, we filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Justice for all FBI investigative records concerning Hunter Biden’s abandoned laptop, which contained extensive evidence of Biden family business dealings (Judicial Watch Inc. v. U.S. Department of Justice (No. 1:25-cv-04240)).

The Justice Department’s refusal to release these basic investigative records raises serious questions about transparency and potential interference in one of the most consequential political stories in recent history. We will fight in court to get the public the answers it is entitled to under the law.

We sued in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia after the FBI failed to respond to a January 29, 2025, FOIA request for:

All FBI investigative reports, witness interview summaries, memoranda, and other records related to the investigation of Hunter Biden's laptop.

All emails, text messages, Lync messages and other electronic communications records related to the Hunter Biden laptop.

IRS whistleblowers confirmed that the FBI became aware of Hunter Biden’s laptop as early as October 2019 and verified its authenticity in November 2019. The FBI took possession of it in December 2019.

 In October 2020, through information obtained from Hunter Biden’s laptop, the New York Post began publishing reports about the Biden family’s business arrangements.

In an August 2022 letter, Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI) highlighted whistleblower concerns about the handling of the FBI’s investigation, noting that the Bureau appeared to take no visible action for months despite possessing the verified laptop well before the 2020 presidential election.

We have filed numerous FOIA lawsuits seeking transparency on the Hunter Biden investigations and related matters.

In July 2025, we sued the Justice Department for all records from the Offices of Attorney General, Deputy Attorney General, and Associate Attorney General regarding Joe Biden’s controversial pardon of Hunter Biden (Judicial Watch Inc. v. U.S. Department of State (No. 1:25-cv-02143)).

A hearing was held in July 2025 in the FOIA lawsuit against the National Archives for Biden family records and communications regarding travel and finance transactions, as well as communications between the Bidens and several known business associates (Judicial Watch, Inc. v. National Archives (No. 1:23-cv-01432).

In February 2025, we filed a lawsuit against the Justice Department for records and communications regarding the Internal Revenue Service’s investigation of Hunter Biden (Judicial Watch, Inc. v. U.S. Department of Justice (No.1:24-cv-03387)).

In June 2024, we received records from the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) showing Mike Morell, former acting CIA director under President Obama, requesting CIA permission to publish a letter by former intelligence community leaders stating that they believed the laptop emails exposing Hunter Biden’s connections to Ukraine were Russian disinformation. Morrell’s request for prepublication review was approved in just six hours by the CIA (Judicial Watch v. Central Intelligence Agency (No. 1:23-cv-01844)).

In January 2024, we filed a lawsuit against the Justice Department for records of communications between the FBI and social media sites regarding foreign influence in elections, as well as Big Tech censorship of the Hunter Biden laptop story (Judicial Watch Inc. v U.S. Department of Justice (No. 1:23-cv-00079)).

In October 2022, we sued the DOJ for all records in the possession of FBI Supervisory Intelligence Analyst Brian Auten regarding an August 6, 2020, briefing provided to members of the U.S. Senate. Ron Johnson (R-WI) and Chuck Grassley (R-IA) raised concerns that the briefing was intended to undermine the senators’ investigation of Hunter Biden (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of Justice (No. 1:22-cv-02821)).

We filed a lawsuit against the U.S. State Department on April 20, 2022, for messages sent through the SMART (State Messaging and Archive Retrieval Toolkit) system that mention Hunter Biden (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of State (No. 1:22-cv-01066)).

In December 2020, State Department records obtained through a Judicial Watch FOIA lawsuit showed that former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie “Masha” Yovanovitch had specifically warned in 2017 about corruption allegations against Burisma Holdings. Previously in this case, State Department records included a briefing checklist of a February 22, 2019, meeting in Kyiv between then-U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch and Sally Painter, co-founder and chief operating officer of Blue Star Strategies, a Democratic lobbying firm which was hired by Burisma Holdings to combat corruption allegations. At the time of the meeting, Hunter Biden was serving on the board of directors for Burisma Holdings (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of State (No. 1:20-cv-00229)).

Judicial Watch Sues Boston Mayor for Details of Mariachi Band Press Conference 

At an August 19, 2025, press conference, Boston Mayor Michelle Wu reportedly vowed to resist the Justice Department’s efforts to secure cooperation from local governments with federal immigration enforcement. The event opened with mariachi music performed for attendees as Wu positioned Boston as a defiant “sanctuary” jurisdiction in opposition to federal law.

To see what’s behind this event, we filed a Massachusetts Public Records Law lawsuit against the City of Boston for details about the press conference during which Wu publicly defied U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi’s demands that Boston comply with federal immigration law (Judicial Watch v. City of Boston (No. 2584 cv 03395)).

We filed the lawsuit in the Suffolk County Superior Court after the Wu administration failed to respond to our public records request for emails of Mayor Wu and her immediate staff about Attorney General Bondi’s demands that Boston modify its sanctuary-city policy and cooperate with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, as well as records related to the appearance of a mariachi band at the August 19, 2025, press conference.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) reported that in September 2025 it and federal partners arrested more than 1,400 illegal aliens in Massachusetts – including murderers, rapists, drug traffickers, child sex predators and members of violent transnational criminal gangs. Acting ICE Director Todd M. Lyons said, “Every illegal alien we arrested during the operation was breaking U.S. immigration law, and hundreds were violent criminals who should never have been allowed to roam freely in our communities.”

Mayor Wu staged a racist political spectacle instead of cooperating with federal law enforcement – even as dangerous criminal aliens are at large in her city. Boston residents deserve to know why the mayor’s office refuses transparency about this event and why city hall is stonewalling lawful public records requests.

In October 2025, we sued the Office of the Mayor of Evanston, IL, for records related to obstruction of federal immigration enforcement.

In January 2025, we sued Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson’s office for records regarding his vow to resist the Trump administration’s mass deportation and other immigration law enforcement activities.

Judicial Watch Sues for FBI Records on Hillary Clinton’s Brother, Tony Rodham

What’s currently in the public record about the schemes of Hillary Clinton’s little brother Tony likely just scratches the surface. 

We filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Justice for FBI records on Hillary Clinton’s deceased brother, Tony Rodham (Judicial Watch v U.S. Department of Justice (No.1:25-cv-04237)).

We  sued in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia after the Justice Department failed to respond adequately to a June 10, 2019, FOIA request for FBI records about Rodham. We are asking for:

All records related to Anthony Dean Rodham, born in August 1954 in Park Ridge, Illinois, who died on June 7, 2019, including but not limited to: investigative reports; 302s; witness statements; Confidential Human Source reporting (FD 1023 forms); meetings/contacts (FD 209a forms); cables; letterhead memoranda; and communications sent to and from FBI officials regarding Mr. Rodham.

In August 2019, the FBI acknowledged it had located over 13,000 pages of records responsive to the request, as well as audio and video files that are potentially responsive to the request. After years of delays, in May 2025, the FBI again acknowledged possession of responsive records and asked if there was still interest. We acknowledged our continued interest in having the request processed without modification of its scope. Having received no further response from the FBI, we filed suit.

Clearly, the Justice Department has been sitting on a wealth of information, and we intend to obtain it.

Rodham for decades used his connections with the Clintons to further his failing career. Rodham described himself as a “facilitator” and had a range of opportunities, like addressing Chinese investor conferences and joining an advisory board of a company seeking permission to mine for gold in Haiti. Among other controversies, Rodham also pursued contracts in post-earthquake Haiti, seeking a $22 million housing deal while Bill Clinton co-chaired the recovery commission, a proposal that collapsed.

While Hillary Clinton was secretary of State, former Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe and Rodham were beneficiaries of the EB-5 cash-for-visas program, in which they raised at least $46 million from investors for their GreenTech Automotive electric-car company. Greentech filed for bankruptcy in February 2018.

Through our FOIA investigations and lawsuits we have uncovered other incidents involving Rodham.

In August 2017, we uncovered records from the State Department revealing repeated use of unsecured communications for classified information and numerous examples of Clinton Foundation donors receiving special favors from former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s staff. The emails also reveal instances of Rodham seeking to leverage his influence as Clinton’s brother. In January 2010, Confidential Assistant Monica Hanley forwarded to Abedin a request from Rodham, on three issues. One involved help on a “green card renewal,” another involved a visit by someone of which Abedin said they “wanted to regret,” and a third involved a job for someone whose CV Rodham forwarded to State.

In July 2017, we received records from the State Department revealing incidents of Huma Abedin, deputy chief of staff to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, providing special State Department treatment to major donors to the Clinton Foundation and political campaigns. The heavily redacted documents from Abedin’s non-government account included an email from Rodham to Abedin revealing that he acted as a go-between for a Clinton Foundation donor, Richard Park. The records also revealed Clinton Foundation executive Doug Band instructing Abedin to “show love” to Clinton donor Andrew Liveris.

Billions of Tax Dollars Spent in Failed Effort to Rebuild Afghanistan 

Afghanistan offers a clear lesson: You can’t smoothly impose Western democracy on a quasi-feudal Third World country. Our Corruption Chronicles blog reports on the billions of your tax dollars that were haphazardly thrown at the attempt to rebuild Afghanistan.

For nearly two decades the U.S. government spent a breathtaking $145 billion on a failed plan to rebuild Afghanistan and at least $26 billion of it was lost to waste, fraud and abuse, according to the final report published by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR). The United States also left behind over $38 billion in military equipment and military and civilian infrastructure, the audit reveals, offering enraging details about the U.S. government’s costly debacle to restore a terrorist nation that promptly returned to Taliban rule the moment American troops left in 2021. Even after the Biden administration’s disastrous military withdrawal, hundreds of millions of dollars in humanitarian aid kept flowing into the coffers of fake charities created by the Taliban. The terrorist group also received at least $239 million in development assistance because the State Department did not screen award recipients, failing to comply with its own counterterrorism partner vetting requirements before disbursing dozens of grants to local entities in the central Asian Islamic nation.

“The Afghan government’s stunningly rapid collapse in August 2021 laid bare a fragility concealed by years of confident assertions of progress,” the new SIGAR report states. “The gap between ambition and reality was vast, with deteriorating conditions continually stymying objectives that proved to be unrealistic.” Investigators blame multiple factors for the U.S. failure to transform a war-torn, underdeveloped country into a stable and prosperous democracy. “For example, early and ongoing U.S. decisions to ally with corrupt, human-rights-abusing powerbrokers bolstered the insurgency and undermined the mission, including U.S. goals for bringing democracy and good governance to Afghanistan,” the audit says, adding that efforts to improve Afghanistan’s economic and social conditions also failed to have a lasting impact and that despite nearly “$90 billion in U.S. appropriations for security-sector assistance, Afghan security forces ultimately collapsed quickly without a sustained U.S. military presence.” The cost of the failed Afghanistan reconstruction plan was “immense,” investigators found, and includes tens of thousands of people— including more than 2,450 U.S. servicemembers—killed. Many more were injured, among them more than 20,700 U.S. servicemembers, the watchdog writes.

SIGAR, which was created in 2009 and will officially shut down at the end of January 2026, has identified at least 1,327 instances of waste, fraud, and abuse for a total of at least $26 billion from 2002 through the middle of 2021. The cash started flowing shortly after President George W. Bush launched military operations in Afghanistan following the 9/11 attacks as part of the war on terror. Even after Afghanistan fell back to Taliban rule in 2021, the U.S. remains its largest donor disbursing over $3.83 billion in humanitarian and development assistance, much of it managed by the famously corrupt United States Agency for International Development (USAID), which was dismantled by the Trump administration. Nevertheless, the money is still flowing to Afghanistan, with disbursements of $120 million in the March 2025 quarter alone, according to the SIGAR report. Past failures have not stopped Uncle Sam from cutting the checks. The report offers a multitude of examples of the waste over the years, including $7.3 billion on an ineffective counternarcotics program that did little to stem the production and exportation of illicit drugs; $4.7 billion on a failed stabilization project to keep insurgents out of an area after they had been expelled by security forces; $675 million on wasteful business development programs aimed at reducing violence to enhance stability and economic normalcy; $486 million for unused aircraft for the Afghan Air Force; $335 million for a USAID constructed power plant that was not utilized and $85 million for an unfinished—and never used—hotel across from the U.S. Embassy in Kabul.

Most of the projects that seemed legitimate were also wasteful and failed to accomplish their goal, the final in-depth probe confirms. For instance, the U.S. allocated $90 billion to Afghanistan Security yet the nation’s security forces collapsed quickly without sustained U.S. Military presence. Investigators warn that the costly failure to rebuild Afghanistan was predictable. “Unlike past reconstruction efforts in places like post-World War II Europe or Japan where the United States successfully rebuilt countries whose modern economies, industry, and infrastructure had been degraded by war, Afghanistan was a severely underdeveloped state,” SIGAR writes. “U.S. efforts there were often trying to create capabilities, systems, and institutions of a type and quality the country had never possessed.”

Until next week,