Hunter Biden’s Laptop Handlers
From an October surprise to January 6 conspiracy theories
“If you don’t run ill never have a chance at redemption,” Hunter Biden texted his father in early 2019. Less than two months later, and a couple weeks before Joe Biden announced his candidacy for President of the United States, his son fatefully abandoned a laptop filled with pornography and other embarrassing files at a computer repair shop in their hometown of Wilmington, Delaware. Of all the stores that Hunter could have hazily stumbled into, it was John Paul Mac Isaac’s Mac Shop. In mid-2020, Mac Isaac sent a copy of the hard drive to Rudy Giuliani, whose lawyer contacted the New York Post to deliver an October surprise.
The conservative tabloid newspaper published a flurry of articles about the contents of the laptop, starting on October 14 with a “Smoking-gun email [that] reveals how Hunter Biden introduced Ukrainian businessman to VP dad.” Much of the intelligence community and the corporate media frantically smeared these stories as Russian disinformation. As MSNBC anchor Nichole Wallace said, “We shouldn’t look at it as anything other than a Russian disinformation operation.”
After the Post accidentally exposed Mac Isaac’s identity, and social media companies took unprecedented steps to suppress the article, Mac Isaac recalls in his memoir that he was horrified, and turned to his father, Colonel Mac, who “had been an Air Force colonel for thirty-one years and also had spent some time in the CIA.” So the story goes, Colonel Mac got his son on the phone with an old friend from the Agency, and ordered him to “shut up and listen” to the man. “He has killed people. Have you killed people?” the Colonel roared.
“Your life is in danger,” warned Larry Johnson, a former CIA analyst, and one of the lesser clearheaded members of the “Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity.” During the 2008 Democratic primary campaign, Johnson spread a viral hoax that an audio recording existed of Michelle Obama ranting about “whitey.” In 2019, Johnson was the source of another viral hoax that Barack Obama had the British Secret Intelligence Service spy on Donald Trump.
John Paul Mac Isaac, thoroughly spooked by Larry Johnson, surrendered Hunter Biden’s laptop to Yaacov Apelbaum, whom Johnson described as “my cyber intelligence guy.” But Apelbaum, if that is his real name, is actually a shadowy far-right disinformation artist from Israel. About a month earlier, around the time that “Q” from QAnon posted an image with the watermark of Apelbaum’s dubious AI company, this “cyber intelligence guy” allegedly reached out to “trade notes on the DNC hack” with a prolific conspiracy theorist in the “Luhansk People’s Republic” who may have inspired Donald Trump’s notion in 2019 about a secret DNC server hidden away in the Ukraine.
Yaacov Apelbaum is someone who remains shrouded in mystery, but he has some very positive recommendations on LinkedIn: “one of the most interesting and creative people I know”; “recognized industry leader who can undertake virtually any engineering or program management task”; “a very unique individual”; “a brilliant technologist”; “someone with tremendous expertise in all aspects of IT architecture”; “probably the most intelligent and effective communicator I’ve encountered.”
“In my view, he did more to connect the web of anti-Trump plotters than anyone before or since,” said one Twitter/X user and self-described news junkie who is committed to “posting what the corrupt, left wing U.S. media tries to hide or suppress.” The Arizona Republic published the most complete profile of Apelbaum in November 2023, according to which, “He has ties to foreign intelligence agencies and has contracted with the U.S. government to use facial recognition software on the border.”
There’s no evidence to suggest Apelbaum, 60, is a spy. He has acknowledged contracting with government intelligence and defense agencies, but he’s tight-lipped about much of his background. “I used to operate in that world,” he said, declining to elaborate. … Some of Apelbaum’s close business associates have ties to foreign intelligence and military agencies, including the Israeli Defense Forces.
In 2009–10, Yaacov Apelbaum co-authored a series of reports on “virtual jihad” for the Washington-based Middle East Media Research Institute, or MEMRI, which The Guardian reported in 2007 to be run by “a former colonel in Israeli military intelligence.” Several years earlier, a spokesperson for the Council on American-Islamic Relations criticized MEMRI for looking “to find the worst possible quotes from the Muslim world and disseminate them as widely as possible.”
By 2015, Apelbaum co-founded XR Vision with Guy Ron, a technology security professional based in Singapore who “began his career as a software development lead with the Israeli Defense Forces.” Apelbaum is currently suing a conservative journalist for calling him an Israeli spy.
A blog post from 2014 indicated that the idea behind XR Vision was “the world’s first standalone, wearable face recognition system” — special glasses with discreet cameras and “on-the-go” facial recognition capabilities for “security agencies, on-the-ground law enforcement officers, intelligence personnel,” and other special “field operators.” According to Apelbaum, “our software is only available for government use.” But as one journalist commented in early 2021, “I swear it seems like Yaacov Apelbaum just draws a little ‘facial recognition square’ on photos to make it look like an algorithm is doing the work.”
Starting in 2019, “research” by Apelbaum and XR Vision generated numerous “BREAKING EXCLUSIVES” for the far-right conspiracy website Gateway Pundit, co-founded by brothers Jim and Joe Hoft. The latter wrote many articles based on XR Vision images and Apelbaum blog posts. Here are some examples:
- “EXCLUSIVE: High Tech Image Recognition and Other Evidence Proves Representative Omar Lied in Front of the Divorce Court Claiming She Hadn’t Seen Husband Since 2011!” (January 17, 2019)
- “Ilhan Omar’s Father was Top Propaganda Official in Genocidal Barre Regime — Then He Changed His Name and Entered US Illegally” (January 19, 2019)
- “Facial, Speech and Virtual Polygraph Analysis Shows Ilhan Omar Exhibits Many Indications of a Compulsive Fibber!!!” (January 21, 2019)
- “EXCLUSIVE: Latest AI and Intelligence Algorithms Using Body Kinetics and Facial Characteristics Show [Robert] Mueller Was Not Honest in House Hearing!” (August 12, 2019)
- “BREAKING UPDATE: SPEAKER PELOSI AND ADAM SCHIFF Connected to Prominent Ukrainian Arms Dealer — PHOTOS” (September 29, 2019)
“EXCLUSIVE: Dr. Shi Zhengli and the Wuhan Institute of Virology Connected to Coronavirus EXPERIMENTED WITH LIVE ANIMALS …And We Have Proof!” (April 10, 2020)
- “From Past History: It’s Highly Likely the Groups Behind Today’s Riots are Domestic Terrorists, Revolutionary Communists, US Based Radical Islamist Orgs and Others Related to the Democrat Party” (May 30, 2020)
- “DISCOVERED: Russians and Other Nefarious Operators Are Inserting Anti-Semitic Conspiracies Into the Q Movement” (August 3, 2020)
- “BREAKING EXCLUSIVE: Videos Show George Floyd Dropping a Small White Baggie Upon Arrest and OFFICERS PULLING CRACK PIPE FROM HIS POCKET” (September 16, 2020)
(Apparently, XRVision also developed crack pipe recognition software.)
- “BREAKING EXCLUSIVE: Using AI (Artificial Intelligence) We’ve CONFIRMED the Hunter Biden Email Photos Are Legitimate and Real” (October 15, 2020)
As Yaacov Apelbaum and the Gateway Pundit got busy on Hunter Biden laptop stories, NBC News correspondent Ken Dilanian, “The CIA’s Mop-Up Man,” reported that federal authorities were investigating a potential “foreign intelligence operation” behind this October surprise. The next day, House Intelligence Committee chairman Adam Schiff (D-CA) told CNN, “we know that this whole smear on Joe Biden comes from the Kremlin.”
Meanwhile, John Paul Mac Isaac’s father menacingly introduced him to CIA veteran Larry Johnson over the phone. In the next few days, Johnson sent over Apelbaum, who made off with the laptop just before dozens of former intelligence officials declared that this scandal “has all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation.” According to Mac Isaac’s memoir,
We sat down at the dining room table, where I had set up a Mac and my working copy of the drive. I sat there quietly as Yaacov pored over the drive’s contents. He was the first person to sit down with me and show a real interest in the contents as well as in the knowledge to access them. He asked about the timeline of events. He asked about how the laptop had come into my possession, and how I’d gotten it to the FBI. His attention turned to the suspected [Biden] criminal activity. At long last, someone was sitting across from me at the table and listening to what I had to say! …
As embarrassing as it was, I started to break down and cry in front of Yaacov — a complete stranger. … I tried to calm down but was embarrassed about crying in front of a complete stranger — it looked weak. And if I’d learned anything over the previous few days, it was that people can sniff out weakness and will use it against you. Yaacov asked more questions, and I pulled myself together enough to answer. Finally, he closed the Mac’s lid and said, “I’m going to take this with me.”
“What, the drive?” I asked, puzzled.
“Yes, the drive and the Mac.”
In the coming days, Larry Johnson wrote his first article for the Gateway Pundit and had John Paul Mac Isaac “seriously fearing for my life.”
“It’s time for you to get out of town,” Larry said. My heart pounded in my chest. “What’s going on?” I asked. “Trump is not going to win the election,” Larry said. “People are taking advantage of the mail-in ballots, and it’s how the election is going to be won. With Joe winning, there will be an effort to crush the Post’s story and everyone involved.” My breathing grew shallow. “The new administration will cover everything up and sweep it under the carpet, and that includes you,” Larry continued. “If you stay in Delaware, you will be painted as a Russian collaborator, and you will mysteriously get on a plane for Moscow after a large sum of cash is deposited in your bank account. The mainstream media will run with the story that after taking the money, you fled to Russia to be with your handlers, and that will be that. No one will ever find your body, and it will be assumed you were just another piece in Putin’s plan to disrupt the 2020 election. You need to get out before the election. It’s no longer safe for you to remain in Delaware.”
The laptop provided fresh material for Yaacov Apelbaum’s blog and the Gateway Pundit, such as an exposé of Hunter Biden’s Pornhub account, and his “Apparent Fetish with the Finger Lakes Region of New York.” Later that year, Apelbaum and Joe Hoft got busy again writing about alleged evidence of election fraud in Georgia, which generated thousands of comments.
- “EXCLUSIVE: Review of Late-Night Ballot Counting in Atlanta’s State Farm Arena Shows Mysterious ‘Man In Red’ Receiving Numerous Calls During the Ballot Heist But from Whom?” (December 6, 2020–1,151 comments)
- “BREAKING EXCLUSIVE: Third Suspect from State Farm Center ‘Suitcase Scandal’ Identified as Ralph Jones, Sr. — Who Was in the News for Shady Deal with ATL Mayor Keisha Bottoms” (December 6, 2020–1,682 comments)
- “‘I Won’t Be Able to Be Interviewed — I Need an Attorney’ — Georgia’s Ruby Freeman Lawyers Up, Cancels Interview” (December 7, 2020–1,256 comments)
“Yaacov Applebaum does amazing work,” said QAnon influencer Tracy Beanz. But XRVision flew a little too close to the sun on January 6, 2021, when it generated a bombshell report in the Washington Times (owned by the Unification Church): “Facial recognition firm claims Antifa infiltrated Trump protesters who stormed Capitol.”
Trump supporters say that Antifa members disguised as one of them infiltrated the protesters who stormed the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday. A retired military officer told The Washington Times that the firm XRVision used its software to do facial recognition of protesters and matched two Philadelphia Antifa members to two men inside the Senate.
After Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) cited this article on the House floor, XRVision came under the microscope of fact-checkers, but the myth of “Antifa infiltrators” took on a life of its own, which put Apelbaum at odds with some fellow travelers in the MAGA universe.
One MAGA conspiracy theorist, who popularized a story about vote-stealing supercomputer, also promoted fake news about Sergei Dubinin, a “PRO RUSSIAN LDNR [‘Luhansk and Donetsk People’s Republics’] OPERATIVE WITH ANTIFA AT THE CAPITOL BUILDING.” In fact, Dubinin was a cameraman for the Ukrainian TV channel “Inter.” Apelbaum, on the other hand, claimed that “Dybynyn is affiliated with members of the Ukrainian nationalist movement.”
Over a year later, Larry Johnson developed a novel theory about the Capitol Riot. “I have the answer for you thanks to the work of Yaacov Apelbaum,” he wrote for the Gateway Pundit in June 2022. As Johnson explained in a podcast interview earlier that spring, “Some of the members of the [Ukrainian neo-Nazi] Azov battalion, for example, they were present in Washington on January 6th. They were flown here by Alexandra Chalupa [a Ukrainian-American former DNC official], and they were brought in specifically to help provoke and incite the crowd.” The evidence was forthcoming, or so Johnson claimed. “The people I’m familiar with, they’ve got the flight information, the hotel information, so it’s not made up.”
Larry Johnson has described Seymour Hersh, the Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist, as “an old friend” and “my go to golf partner.” Contrary to Hersh’s claim that they’re just golfing buddies, some have speculated that Johnson has been an important source for Hersh, which would be alarming. Larry Johnson is another “Veteran Intelligence Professional for Sanity” who associates with the LaRouche cult.
In September 2023, far-right conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer made a pair of viral Twitter/X posts, both with images from XRVision, about Sergei Dubinin, “a Ukrainian spy who is affiliated with the Nazi Azov battalion.” The first one was reposted almost 30,000 times, and according to “X,” received 12.8 million views.
I have exclusively confirmed that the FBI identified Ukrainian operatives and Neo Nazis who were at the US Capitol on J6 and even questioned J6ers about these Ukrainian spies during interviews with the FBI. During their private interview with ‘@AmericanShaman [Jacob Chansley, AKA the “QAnon-Shaman”], the FBI asked him how he knew a Ukrainian operative who took a photo with him the day of J6 2021. Chansley didn’t know the guy, and FBI confirmed that the Ukrainian Sergai Dybynyn was a Ukrainian spy who is affiliated with the Nazi Azov Battalion.
This means the US Capitol was penetrated by Ukrainian spies and the US Government and FBI have still not arrested these people or made the public aware of foreign penetration. This is an act of war by Ukraine against the United States, and yet the US Government has sent $200 BILLION to Ukraine in the last 2 years.
The CIA is funding a color revolution in the United States via Ukrainian Nazis and American Nazis who are being recruited by the CIA and FBI to fight overseas in the Azov Battalion and then come back to the US to instigate Nazi political movements in a psyop intended to make right wingers look bad.
The reality is, these people are Democrats and Biden supporters and the FBI has been hiding the fact that Ukrainian operatives penetrated the US Capitol on J6 and they have been hiding the fact that they are working with Ukrainian Nazis to instigate violence to subvert the US Government, including actions to impeach President Trump, instigate violence at Charlottesville which was used as Biden’s reason for running for President against Trump, and to stage violence at the Capitol on J6.
Now the FBI and CIA are using Ukrainian Nazis to instigate racial division in the US during an election year so that Neo Nazi marches pop up in red states when voters are deciding who to vote for ahead of 2024.
This is a CIA funded domestic terror operation intended to interfere in the U.S. Election and to make sure Donald Trump is never allowed to be President ever again.
This is treason. And everyone involved needs to go to prison.
This might be the biggest story I have ever uncovered.
Although Laura Loomer took all the credit, others paved the way for the “biggest story” of her career. “She needs to apologize,” said Trevor Fitzgibbon, the managing director of the “American Values 2024” Super PAC that supported Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.’s presidential campaign. Fitzgibbon didn’t mean that Loomer should apologize to himself, Larry Johnson, or Yaacov Apelbaum — but the UAnon Shaman…
“Unfortunately @LauraLoomer is taking credit for a story that Donbas-based investigative reporter, @gheliason [George Eliason], already broke.” This is who Apelbaum allegedly “traded notes with on the DNC hack” in 2020, and might have been the source of Donald Trump’s 2019 conspiracy theory about a secret DNC server in Ukraine. According to Eliason, “directly after” Trump supporters stormed the Capitol, “I was contacted by XRVision’s CEO Jacob Applebaum to confirm the ID and build Dybynyn’s profile which is all the information known about this man and his motivation at Capitol Hill on January 6th.”
Last year, Steve Bannon and Rudy Giuliani starred in a documentary, “Hunter Biden’s Laptop — Requiem for Ukraine,” directed by Igor Lopatonok, a Ukrainian-American filmmaker and Trump supporter who formerly worked with Oliver Stone on a trilogy of Ukraine documentaries. Toward the conclusion of “Hunter Biden’s Laptop,” Giuliani says, “When a child can be mutilated without the permission of the parent, you’re talking Karl Marx!” Another part juxtaposes violent far-right thugs in Ukraine with Black Lives Matter activists in the United States. Lopatonok wrote this documentary, and several more which aired on the Tucker Carlson Network, with a certain “Donbas-based investigate reporter.”
Two days before Joe Biden’s inauguration, somewhere in the “Luhansk People’s Republic,” George Eliason wrote another blog post: “Were Ukrainian Neo-Nazis Involved in Planning, Executing the Capitol Hill Siege?” The first sentence didn’t quite answer the headline: “Democrats were working with Ukraine as well as US militants (AntiFa, BLM) to stop the January 6th presentation of election fraud evidence on Donald Trump’s behalf.” In this article, Eliason referred to Dubinin as a member of the Right Sector movement in Ukraine, but a year later, not long before Larry Johnson latched on to the story, Eliason concluded that “every footprint associated with entry into the Capitol, instigating violence, and some of the violence itself is unmistakably Ukraine’s Azov.”
