Hunter Biden’s gun trial enters its final stretch after deeply personal testimony about his drug use
WILMINGTON, Del.– WILMINGTON, Del. (AP) — The criminal trial of President Joe Biden’s son enters its final stretch on Monday as the defense tries to put away the prosecutors’ case exposing some of the darkest moments of Hunter Biden’s drug-fueled past.
Hunter Biden’s lawyers could call at least one more witness when the case resumes in Delaware federal court — the first of two trials he faces in the midst of his father’s reelection campaign. It’s unclear whether prosecutors will call any rebuttal witnesses before the case goes to closing arguments and then to the jury.
Hunter Biden is charged with three felonies stemming from the October 2018 purchase of a gun that he had in his possession for approximately 11 days. Prosecutors say he lied on one mandatory form for weapons purchase saying he was not illegally using drugs or addicted to them.
Hunter Biden has pleaded not guilty and has accused the Justice Department of bowing to political pressure from former President Donald Trump and other Republicans to bring the case. separate tax levies after a The deal with prosecutors fell apart last year. Hunter Biden has said he has been sober since 2019, but his lawyers have said he did not consider himself an “addict” when he filled out the form.
The case has spotlighted a turbulent time in Hunter Biden’s life following the death of his brother Beau in 2015. First Lady Jill Biden watched it unfold from the front row of the courtroom. President Biden has been away in France for much of the past week and is heading back to Europe this week for the Group of Seven leaders’ meeting in Italy.
Hunter Biden’s struggles with substance addiction before he got sober more than five years ago have been well documented. But defense lawyers argue there is no evidence Hunter Biden actually used drugs in the 11 days he had the gun in his possession. He had completed a rehabilitation program weeks earlier.
Jurors have heard emotional and tasteless testimony from Hunter Biden former romantic partners and read personal text messages. They have seen photos of Hunter Biden holding a crack pipe and partially clothed, and videos of his phone showing crack cocaine being weighed on a scale.
His ex-wife and two former girlfriends testified for prosecutors about his habitual crack use and their failed attempts to help him get clean. A woman who met Hunter Biden in 2017 at a strip club where she worked described him smoking crack every 20 minutes while she was staying with him at a hotel.
Hunter Biden has not taken the witness stand and it is unclear whether he will. But jurors heard him describe his addiction at length through audio clips played from him in the courtroom Memoirs from 2021 ‘Beautiful things’. The book, written after he got sober, covers the period he had the gun but does not specifically mention it.
A key witness for prosecutors Beau’s widow, Hallie, who had a briefly difficult relationship with Hunter after his brother died of brain cancer. She found the unloaded gun in Hunter’s truck on Oct. 23, 2018, panicked and threw it in a Wilmington grocery store trash can, where a man accidentally fished it out of the trash.
“I didn’t want him to hurt himself, and I didn’t want my kids to find out and hurt themselves,” Hallie Biden told jurors.
From the time Hunter returned to Delaware from a trip to California in 2018 until she threw away his gun, she did not see him use drugs, Hallie told jurors. That period included the day he purchased the gun. But jurors also saw text messages Hunter sent to Hallie in October 2018 that said he was waiting for a dealer and smoking crack. The first message was sent the day after he purchased the gun. The second was shipped the next day.
The defense has suggested that Hunter Biden was trying to turn his life around at the time of the gun purchase, after completing a detox and rehabilitation program in late August 2018.
“There is no evidence of concurrent drug use and gun possession,” attorney Abbe Lowell wrote in the lawsuits filed Friday. “It was only after the gun was discarded and the resulting stress … that the government was able to find the same type of evidence of his use (e.g., photographs, use of drug jargon) that caused him to relapse with drugs.”
Hunter Biden’s daughter Naomi took the stand for the defense on Friday, telling jurors about visiting her father while he was in a drug rehabilitation center in California weeks before he bought the gun. She told the judges that he seemed “hopeful” and that he would get better, and she told him she was proud of him. As she was dismissed from the stand, she paused to hug her father before leaving the courtroom.
The defense did not rule out on Friday that one more witness would be called, but it was unclear who that could be. Hunter’s attorneys had previously said they planned to call as a witness Joe Biden’s brother James and he was at the courthouse on Friday. Testimony from other family members could open the door for deeper personal messages to be presented to the jury.
President Joe Biden said last week he would accept the jury’s verdict and has ruled out a pardon for his son. First Lady Jill Biden was in court every day last week to support Hunter, except Thursday when she was with the president in France D-Day anniversary events.
It appeared Hunter Biden would have avoided prosecution in the gun case altogether, but a deal last summer with prosecutors imploded after U.S. District Judge Maryellen Noreika, who was nominated to the bench by Republican former President Donald Trump, expressed concerns about this. Hunter Biden was subsequently charged with three gun crimes. He is also confronted by A trial scheduled for September for misdemeanor charges alleging failure to pay at least $1.4 million in taxes for four years.
If convicted in the gun case, Hunter Biden faces a maximum sentence of 25 years in prison, although first-time offenders won’t face close to the maximum, and it’s unclear whether the judge would give him a prison sentence.
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Richer reported from Washington.