In a new twist in the ongoing saga of the infamous Hunter Biden laptop, lawyers for the first son on Wednesday appeared to admit that the computer abandoned at a Delaware repair shop was indeed his, despite prior expressions of uncertainty about its provenance, as the New York Post reports.

The noteworthy change in tone came in communications from Hunter Biden's attorneys in which they demanded a formal investigation into what they deemed efforts by political adversaries of President Joe Biden to “weaponize” the device's contents.

Lowell's letter

As the Daily Mail reports, Abbe Lowell, an attorney for Hunter Biden, sent a letter to the Department of Justice asking for the initiation of probes into Rudy Giuliani, a onetime lawyer for former President Donald Trump, former Trump adviser Steve Bannon, and Delaware computer repair shop owner John Paul Mac Isaac, among others.

In his letter, Lowell claims that the actions of the aforementioned men “violated various Delaware laws in accessing, copying, manipulating, and/or disseminating Mr. Biden's personal computer data” found on the controversial laptop.

Lowell's letter continued, saying, “This failed dirty political trick directly resulted in the exposure, exploitation, and manipulation of Mr. Biden's private and personal information.”

Specifically referencing the computer repair shop proprietor, Lowell declared, “Mr. Mac Isaac's intentional, reckless, and unlawful conduct allowed for hundreds of gigabytes of Mr. Biden's personal data, without any discretion, the be circulated around the Internet.”

Walking it back

Lowell's demand for an investigation into those he accused of wrongfully disseminating Hunter Biden's personal information appeared to countless observers as a blockbuster admission that the much-discussed laptop computer had indeed belonged to his client.

However, after news of his letter to the Justice Department broke, Lowell backtracked somewhat in an attempt to counter the growing perception that just such an admission had been made, as Fox News noted.

Speaking to Fox News Digital, Lowell contended, “These letters do not confirm Mac Isaac's or others' versions of a so-called laptop. They address their conduct of seeking, manipulating and disseminating what they allege to be Mr. Biden's personal data, wherever they claim to have gotten it.”

This new legal approach, in the estimation of the New York Post editorial board, is simply a ploy to paint Hunter Biden as a victim of his father's political foes.

Not buying it

Despite Wednesday's apparent changes in legal strategy from the Hunter Biden camp, the Daily Mail reports that congressional Republicans are far from convinced of their validity.

Speaking of the initial letter from Lowell to the DOJ, Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) said, “It's an admission that it really is Hunter Biden's laptop, isn't it?”

“I'm not a lawyer, but my understanding of the law of custody is, when he abandoned it, it was no longer his,” the senator added.

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) also took issue with Lowell's premise, stating, “When the Biden Justice Department is being widely, and I think rightly, criticized for being overly partisan and having a double standard based on political objectives, it might not be the best idea in the world for DOJ to follow the prosecution choices of the president's own son who himself is facing threat of indictment on multiple fronts.”

Critics weigh in

Despite Lowell's insistence late Wednesday that no admissions about the laptop had actually been made by virtue of his letter to the DOJ, journalists and others who have been following the story since its inception, such as Miranda Devine of the Post, saw things quite differently.

“Hunter Biden admits infamous laptop is his. Not Russian disinformation, not a 'plant' as his father and 51 dishonest former intel officials pretended,” Devine wrote on Twitter, according to Fox News.

Radio host and Outkick founder Clay Travis added, “So Hunter Biden is now admitting, after three years, that everything on the laptop is real? Bold strategy. Especially after Democrats & their media allies spent years arguing Hunter's laptop was Russian disinformation.”

Former Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe, who stated back in 2020 that the laptop was not Russian disinformation, told Fox News Digital on Thursday that what has gone on since then has been nothing short of disgraceful. “You have literally had the Bidens lie about it – Hunter Biden, Joe Biden, the Biden administration, Biden White House officials, the Democratic Party, Democratic politicians, the left leaning media,” he declared.