The Hunter Biden shower video is footage recorded in the early hours of December 15, 2018, showing Hunter Biden in a shower with two women, described in reporting as prostitutes, while he appears to take a hit from a crack pipe. It was recorded at a rental property in the Plum Island area of Newburyport, Massachusetts, where he was undergoing treatment for crack cocaine and alcohol addiction, and it was published by The Sun on July 7, 2022, after being pulled from the contents of his abandoned laptop.1The Sun. Hunter Biden Drugs Crack Sex Prostitutes
The Sun reported that the two women were involved in at least three encounters with Hunter Biden during November and December 2018. After the final session, they asked him to request money from his father to fund their travel home. Joe Biden had reportedly sent his son $75,000 roughly nine days before the video was recorded to help with treatment costs.1The Sun. Hunter Biden Drugs Crack Sex Prostitutes
How the Video Reached the Public
The footage was recovered from an Apple iPhone backup found on a laptop that Hunter Biden dropped off at a Delaware computer repair shop in April 2019 and never picked up. The shop’s owner, John Paul Mac Isaac, eventually shared the device’s contents with Robert Costello, a lawyer who worked with Rudy Giuliani, and the material reached the New York Post and law enforcement in October 2020, weeks before the presidential election.2USA Today. Hunter Biden Laptop Images Videos Emails
The shower footage specifically was provided to The Sun by Marco Polo, a nonprofit founded by Garrett Ziegler, a former Trump White House aide who had worked under trade adviser Peter Navarro. Marco Polo published an online database of roughly 128,000 emails attributed to Hunter Biden, along with thousands of photos, videos, and financial records allegedly sourced from the laptop and associated cloud storage.3NBC News. Hunter Biden Sues Former Trump Aide in Connection With Laptop Leak
The FBI seized the laptop in 2019 and conducted its own forensic extraction of the data, which prosecutors later described as “real” and containing “significant evidence of guilt.”4CNN. Hunter Biden Laptop Gun Trial Special Counsel
Lawsuits Hunter Biden Filed Over the Video and Related Material
Garrett Ziegler and Marco Polo
In September 2023, Hunter Biden sued Ziegler, Marco Polo, and ten unnamed defendants in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, alleging violations of state and federal computer fraud laws. The complaint accused the defendants of “accessing, tampering with, manipulating, altering, copying and damaging” his data and sought damages and an injunction against further dissemination.5Los Angeles Times. Hunter Biden Sues Former Trump Aide for Disseminating Personal Photos and Information Online
U.S. District Judge Hernan Vera denied Ziegler’s motion to dismiss and ordered him to pay approximately $18,000 in Hunter Biden’s legal fees.6BBC. Hunter Biden Laptop Lawsuit The case was later dismissed with prejudice on March 13, 2025, at Hunter Biden’s own request. He told the court he lacked the financial resources to keep litigating.7National Review. Judge Grants Hunter Biden’s Request to Dismiss Lawsuit Because He’s Broke Ziegler and related defendants filed notices of appeal to the Ninth Circuit, where proceedings were still ongoing as of mid-2026.8PACER Monitor. Robert Hunter Biden v. Garrett Ziegler et al
Rudy Giuliani and Robert Costello
Also in September 2023, Hunter Biden sued Giuliani and Costello for allegedly copying, manipulating, and distributing his laptop records. That case was voluntarily dismissed without prejudice in June 2024, with both sides agreeing to cover their own legal costs.9Reuters. Hunter Biden Agrees to Drop Lawsuit Against Rudy Giuliani10Bloomberg Law. Hunter Biden Drops Data Hacking Suit Against Rudy Giuliani
John Paul Mac Isaac
Hunter Biden filed a counterclaim against the repair shop owner in Delaware, accusing him of invading his privacy by copying and sharing personal data for political purposes. Mac Isaac brought his own claims, including defamation. In August 2025, the Delaware Supreme Court affirmed the dismissal of Mac Isaac’s defamation claims, holding that the statements at issue were not actionable, and also dismissed Hunter Biden’s counterclaims.11Courthouse News. Computer Repairman Loses Defamation Appeal Against Hunter Biden and Politico
Fox News Under New York’s Revenge Porn Law
Hunter Biden sued Fox News in New York over a 2022 Fox Nation miniseries called The Trial of Hunter Biden, invoking a 2019 New York state law that allows people to sue over the sharing of sexually explicit images without consent. The suit alleged the program incorporated real intimate images of Biden to humiliate him, and it sought damages and permanent deletion of the material. Fox News called the suit “entirely politically motivated” and “devoid of merit,” argued First Amendment protection, and removed the series from its streaming platform in April 2024 “in an abundance of caution.”12New York Times. Hunter Biden Fox Lawsuit13Bloomberg Law. Hunter Biden Sues Fox News Under Revenge Porn Statute
How the Laptop Material Fed the Criminal Cases
The same laptop that produced the shower video also produced evidence for two federal prosecutions brought by Special Counsel David Weiss.
In the gun case, prosecutors relied on the FBI’s forensic extractions from the laptop to argue that Hunter Biden was addicted to illegal drugs when he bought a Colt pistol in October 2018. He was charged with lying to a federally licensed gun dealer, making a false statement on a federal firearms application, and illegally possessing the weapon from October 12 to October 23, 2018. On June 11, 2024, a Wilmington, Delaware jury found him guilty on all three counts after roughly three hours of deliberation.14New York Times. Hunter Biden Trial Verdict
In a separate California case, Hunter Biden was charged with nine counts (three felonies for tax evasion and filing false returns, plus six misdemeanors) for failing to pay $1.4 million in federal taxes between 2016 and 2019. On September 5, 2024, he pleaded guilty to all counts with no agreement from prosecutors to recommend a reduced sentence, telling the court he chose to plead to spare his family further “pain” and “invasions of privacy.”15Politico. Hunter Biden Trial Plea Tax Charges16NPR. Hunter Biden Trial Tax Evasion Addiction
The Pardon That Closed the Cases
On December 1, 2024, President Joe Biden granted his son a “full and unconditional pardon” covering any offenses against the United States committed between January 1, 2014, and December 1, 2024. The pardon explicitly covered both the gun and tax convictions and reached any federal offenses Hunter Biden “committed or may have committed” during that eleven-year window.17U.S. Department of Justice. Presidential Pardon for R. Hunter Biden
The decision reversed repeated public promises. President Biden had said, both before and after dropping out of the 2024 presidential race, that he would not pardon or commute his son’s sentence. In his statement, the president called the prosecutions a “miscarriage of justice” driven by “raw politics” and said his son had been “singled out only because he is my son.”18UC Santa Barbara American Presidency Project. Statement on the Presidential Pardon for R. Hunter Biden
The judges who had overseen the criminal cases had already rejected selective-prosecution arguments; the judge in the gun trial called that claim “nonsensical under the facts here.”19CNN. Hunter Biden Joe Biden Pardon Weiss, in his final report, defended the investigation as “the culmination of thorough, impartial investigations, not partisan politics.”20U.S. Department of Justice. Report of Special Counsel Weiss
The pardon ended the possibility of prison time and made the scheduled sentencing hearings moot. On December 3, 2024, Judge Noreika terminated proceedings in the Delaware gun case. Prosecutors in the California tax case moved to close the matter but opposed wiping the charges from the record entirely, arguing that the grand jury’s indictment based on probable cause should remain.21ABC7 Chicago. Hunter Biden Pardon