Former US Secret Service Agent

Data recovered from Hunter Biden’s abandoned laptop showed the president’s son allegedly used burner phone apps extensively from 2014 to 2018, and a data recovery app to extract data from iPhones owned by Hallie Biden , the widow of his late brother Beau.

The discovery was made by Konstantinos “Gus” Dimitrelos, a retired US Secret Service agent and current CEO of US-based Cyber ​​Forensics, after examining a copy of the laptop’s hard drive provided by the Washington Examiner.

According to his reportone of its main findings was a CSV file, created on January 21, 2019, containing Hunter Biden’s transaction records in the Apple App Store.

“The file contained over 2,000 purchases by Robert Hunter Biden and dozens of purchases of burning phone apps that are used to generate alternate phone numbers capable of making calls and texting from a primary mobile device such as an iPhone or iPad,” the report said.

Dimitrelos listed details of 39 purchase transactions in his report, with their invoices dating from 2014 to 2018, showing Hunter Biden making multiple purchases with three burner phone apps: Phoner, textPlus and WePhone. The President’s son purchased items such as “Unlimited Calls to Mexico”, “Unlimited Calls to the United States and Canada” and “Second Phone Number per Year”.

It’s unclear why Hunter Biden needed these apps, which provide better privacy protection. And it is also unclear if and to what extent he used these different phone numbers to carry out business transactions abroad.

Hunter Biden, who is currently under federal investigation for tax matters, has come under scrutiny for his overseas business dealings in countries including Ukraine, Russia and China , especially when Joe Biden was vice president under the Obama administration.

“In addition to purchasing phone burner apps, there is evidence on the MacBook Pro hard drive that Phoner was used to record a call and save the audio file titled Recording.mp3,” the report said. The audio file, which was 8 minutes and 16 seconds long, involved a conversation between Hunter Biden and a woman he called Hallie.

On May 6, 2017, Hunter Biden purchased dr.fone, a software that allows its users to recover deleted data and backup data on their mobile phones, as well as transfer certain files such as photos and contacts between phones and computers. According to the report, the software was installed on Hunter Biden’s abandoned laptop.

Hunter Biden “manually connected the iPhones belonging to Hallie,” the report says, and he “extracted” information including messages, call logs, photographs, notes and more than 120 voicemails.

In 2017, Hunter Biden began dating Hallie Biden, two years after Beau Biden died of brain cancer. The two eventually separated and the president’s son remarried in 2019.

Dimitrelos ended his report by authenticating the laptop.

“Based on my analysis and overwhelming data, the Hunter Biden MacBook Pro was not hacked and the data contained on the hard drive is genuine,” he wrote. “Based on the data I have reviewed, there was no manipulation of photographs, emails, documents, or other user activity.”

In October 2020, the New York Post broken the story of Hunter Biden’s laptop. The Washington Post and New York Times did not authenticate the laptop until March 2022.

The Epoch Times has reached out to Hunter Biden’s attorney, Chris Clark, for comment.

Recently, Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.), a senior member of the House Oversight and Reform Committee, letters sent to Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and 13 banks, demanding financial records and documents related to Hunter Biden, his uncle James Biden and his business associates Eric Schwerin and Devon Archer, among others.

“We are investigating the domestic and international business relationships of President Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, and other associates and family members of Biden to determine whether these activities compromise the national security of the United States and the ability of President Biden to lead with impartiality,” Comer wrote in the letters.

Comer’s letters cite a CBS News report that said more than 150 financial transactions linked to Hunter Biden or James Biden “have been flagged by US banks” as concerning.

“The number of transactions reported in this case is highly unusual and may indicate serious criminal activity or a threat to national security,” Comer said in the letter (pdf) in Yellen.

The 13 banks include Morgan Stanley, Citi Bank and Bank of America, as well as the state bank Bank of China (pdf).

Comer wanted the Yellens and the banks to produce the documents and information by June 8.

The documents Comer seeks could lay the groundwork for a potential investigation by House Republicans if they take control of the House after the midterm elections.

To follow

Frank Fang is a Taiwan-based journalist. He covers news from the United States, China and Taiwan. He holds a master’s degree in materials science from Tsinghua University in Taiwan.

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