CBS/Getty The FBI's Joshua Wilson, left, and Hunter Biden.
Joshua Wilson is an FBI agent whose name may appear on a subpoena produced by a Delaware computer store owner as the controversy over an alleged laptop and Joe Biden’s son Hunter Biden rages.
Who is Joshua Wilson? It’s true that a signature that resembles that of an FBI agent named Joshua Wilson is somewhat visible on the subpoena in question, and now a sitting senator is speculating about what that means for Hunter Biden on Fox Business. It’s not confirmed, though, that the subpoena has anything to do with a laptop owned by Hunter Biden. That’s because it’s not verified that the laptop in question really belonged to Joe Biden’s son or that the emails supposedly on it – which were reported in a controversial New York Post article – are real. It’s also not confirmed that the subpoena was really for the laptop.
There is an FBI agent named Joshua Wilson who has worked on child pornography and abduction cases over the years.
The laptop story has caused a flurry of controversy as the presidential election looms.
Here’s what you need to know:
John Paul Mac Isaac, a Trump Supporter Who Owns a Computer Repair Business, Claims He Found Evidence on a MacBook He Says Belongs to Hunter Biden
The New York Post ran the story that alleged Hunter Biden dropped off a damaged MacBook laptop at a Delaware computer store to be repaired, and emails and photos were discovered on it. The Post alleged that the computer store owner, a man named John Paul Mac Isaac, “made a copy of the hard drive and later gave it to former Mayor Rudy Giuliani’s lawyer, Robert Costello.”
However, the Post’s story is controversial and much-scrutinized. The New York Times reported that the Post’s “front-page article about Hunter Biden … was written mostly by a staff reporter who refused to put his name on it … because he had concerns over the article’s credibility.” Unidentified Post employees who spoke to The Times said “many” staff members had concerns about the story’s sources, the timing and “whether the paper had done enough to verify the authenticity of the hard drive’s contents.”
The alleged smoking-gun email The Post claims was found on the computer shows Hunter Biden setting up a meeting between his father and a Ukrainian energy firm executive, an accusation the Biden campaign denies. Mac Isaac said he turned the laptop over to the FBI, and he produced a subpoena he said related to it. Giuliani is an avid Trump supporter; that fact and the story’s proximity to the presidential election are raising questions. The New York Post story generated intense controversy after major social media platforms limited its reach. The Post article was headlined, “Smoking-gun email reveals how Hunter Biden introduced Ukrainian businessman to VP dad.”
The story alleged, “Hunter Biden introduced his father, then-Vice President Joe Biden, to a top executive at a Ukrainian energy firm less than a year before the elder Biden pressured government officials in Ukraine into firing a prosecutor who was investigating the company, according to emails obtained by The Post.”
What’s the subpoena about? Mac Isaac, a Trump supporter, gave the Post a copy of what he says was a subpoena to appear in federal court in 2019 for a grand jury related to the MacBook, but it’s not confirmed whether that subpoena really does relate to Hunter Biden or the laptop brought to Mac Isaac’s store.
Several aspects of Mac Isaac’s story have raised more questions; for example, he says he didn’t actually see Hunter Biden drop off the laptop, which had a Beau Biden Foundation sticker on it. The Daily Beast reported that Mac Isaac gave conflicting statements about the laptop, including about the FBI contact. He referred to Giuliani as his “lifeguard” in that interview and stated that he was afraid for his life.
“Dear Hunter, thank you for inviting me to DC and giving an opportunity to meet your father and spent some time together. It’s realty an honor and pleasure,” the email, purportedly from Vadym Pozharskyi and found on the mysterious laptop in question, reads. The Post also alleged the laptop contained sexually explicit photos. An FBI spokesperson told the Post: “My office can neither confirm nor deny the existence of an investigation.”
The Post story also contained photos purportedly of Hunter Biden. Some people have raised questions about those photos as well as the emails, claiming a Photoshop clone tool was used on at least one picture.
According to Business Insider, which published a story scrutinizing the subpoena, the name of the server appears to be “Joshua Wilson.” But the outlet admitted it’s “not 100% legible.” Business Insider compared the signature somewhat visible on the other side of the subpoena document to the signature of Joshua Wilson, an FBI agent who signed a 2012 complaint. “The signature on that complaint clearly matches the unreversed signature on the subpoena published by the New York Post,” reported the site, which acknowledged it’s not certain whether there is more than one Joshua Wilson working for the FBI. Heavy checked federal salary databases and wasn’t able to answer that question, either.
Mac Isaac stated he “did not see child pornography” on the laptop in question, according to Business Insider.
This is Joshua Wilson, the FBI agent’s, signature in the 2012 complaint, which you can read here.
You can see a signature barely visible through the page of the subpoena provided by the computer store owner:
The signature visible through the subpoena page.
Here it is flipped. The writing also appears to say FBI Wilmington.
Business Insider noted that subpoenas are supposed to be signed by the serving agent.
The Post alleged, “Photos of a Delaware federal subpoena given to The Post show that both the computer and hard drive were seized by the FBI in December after the shop’s owner says he alerted the feds to their existence.” However, it hasn’t been verified that the subpoena related to that laptop or even that Hunter Biden really owned the computer.
Complicating matters further, USA Today has reported that the FBI is investigating whether the Post story on the laptop is a disinformation campaign by Russia.
Joshua Wilson of the FBI Has Spoken About Child Abductions & Worked Child Pornography Cases Over the Years
An event page document describes Joshua Wilson as a “Supervisory Special Agent FBI.” The page lists speakers for “Responding to Child Abductions, Part 1 & 2” at the 29th Annual Crimes Against Children Conference.
“Joshua Wilson is a Supervisory Special Agent and 13-year veteran of the FBI,” it reads. “He has worked Violent Crimes Against Children matters for almost his entire Bureau career. Joshua currently serves as the Coordinator of the FBI’s national Child Abduction Rapid Deployment (CARD) Team at FBI Headquarters.”
In 2011, a Joshua Wilson of the FBI was involved in a child pornography investigation involving a law firm partner.
A 2012 story by NJ.com mentioned an FBI agent named Joshua Wilson who was based in Newark. It was entitled, “A depraved world: FBI agents wage a stressful battle against child pornography.” That story describes Wilson as “an FBI agent based in New Jersey who has spent nearly five years working full time on child pornography.” Wilson was quoted describing the effect the job has on FBI agents, saying, “If I were single, I would work myself to death. Because how do you justify going home to watch TV at night when you could open another case, or prepare another search warrant, to try and stop a kid from getting abused.”
A 2010 court document described Joshua Wilson as being an FBI agent out of Newark who was involved in a child pornography investigation.
A 2012 court document stated that Joshua Wilson, FBI, was involved in a child pornography case.
However, a later story said that an FBI agent named Joshua Wilson was, in 2017, on the “Child Abduction Rapid Deployment team.” A story by WCNC reported that Wilson was the “Supervisory Special Agent for the team” and was looking into a 17-year-old disappearance of a 9-year-old child named Asha Degree.
A 2017 story by CBS Denver described a child abduction training session the FBI held in the area. It contained a photo of Joshua Wilson and quoted him as saying, “In cases where a child is taken and murdered, 76 percent of those children are killed within the first three hours. … It’s a crime where you have no body, no witness, no evidence, no crime scene. So we have to flood the area with law enforcement as quickly as possible to identify those witnesses that don’t know that they saw something.”
Senator Ron Johnson Was Asked About Hunter Biden, the Laptop & Pornography on Fox News
Ron Johnson is on Fox News suggesting there’s child pornography on the computer that purportedly belongs to Hunter Biden
U.S. Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin went on Fox News and discussed the issue. You can watch his comments above.
The anchor, Maria Bartiromo, said:
There is further analysis of the subpoena’s handwriting, and it suggests that the subpoena was served by an FBI agent whose name is Joshua Wilson. Over the last five years, he has been working on child pornography issues. Connect the dots. If an FBI agent is working on child pornography issues for five years, why is he subpoenaing the laptop of Hunter Biden? Is there a connection there? Should this suggest that there is a child pornography issue here on that laptop?
Johnson, who is a supporter of President Donald Trump, responded:
Well, I think you just made the connection. Again, this is what the FBI has to come clean about. This isn’t a standard investigation where if the FBI doesn’t indict somebody that everything remains confidential. This is something that as we were talking about relates to national security. If there’s criminal activity involved that can be tied to Hunter Biden or his business associates or possibly be tied back to other members of the Biden family as some of these emails indicate that Joe Biden was fully aware of this; he was taking his 10% cut or requiring 50% from his family members’ salary. This needs to be known before Americans go to the polls.
The anchor continued: “Was the FBI agent who served the subpoena investigating child pornography, Senator?”
Responded Johnson,
You just read the news report. I can’t comment any further. I don’t want to speculate. Other than to say what I said publicly before. Our report uncovered so many troubling connections, so many things that need to be investigated that I really think we are just scratching the surface. Yes, I’ve heard all kinds of things that I think will probably be revealed over the next few days. There’s a treasure trove of emails and video and pictures and not only in the reported computer of Hunter Biden, but now we’ve got the co-conspirator. … I guess we will just find new information every day over the next couple weeks.
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