“But before the computer store owner, John Paul Mac Isaac, turned over the computer to the FBI he first downloaded much of its contents. “
I thought it was reported he made copies?
Yeah, Jim's strength isn't tech.
Mac Isaac almost surely cloned it: reported as "made a copy" in most every story thus far.
It's much easier just to clone a Macbook drive to an external (or more often, another Mac) than to drag over tomes or copy a shitton of stuff out of legacy email accounts. And Mac Isaac, if he included Mac repair in his shop services? Even if he wasn't an Apple Authorized Service Repair, it's above average at least to offer Mac service.