WILMINGTON, Delaware (AP) – The criminal trial of President Joe Biden’s son reaches its final stretch on Monday, as the defense tries to chip away at prosecutors’ case revealing some of the darkest moments in Biden Hunterdrug-fueled past.
Hunter Biden’s lawyers may 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 re-election campaign. It’s unclear whether prosecutors will call rebuttal witnesses before the case goes to closing arguments and then to the jury.
Biden Hunter is accused of three crimes arising from the purchase, in October 2018, of a gun that he had owned for approximately 11 days. Prosecutors say he lied in one mandatory weapons purchase form saying he did not use drugs illegally or was addicted to drugs.
Hunter Biden has pleaded not guilty and accused the Justice Department of bowing to political pressure from former President Donald Trump and other Republicans to open the case and separate tax charges after a deal with prosecutors fell through last year. Hunter Biden said he has been sober since 2019, but his lawyers said he did not consider himself an “addict” when he filled out the form.
The case highlighted a turbulent time in Hunter Biden’s life following the death of his brother Beau in 2015. First lady Jill Biden watched the event unfold from the front row of the courtroom. President Biden was in France for much of last week and is heading to Europe again this week for the Group of Seven leaders’ meeting in Italy.
Hunter Biden’s struggle with substance addiction before becoming sober more than five years ago is well documented. But defense attorneys argue there is no evidence that Hunter Biden was actually using drugs in the 11 days he owned the gun. He had completed a rehabilitation program weeks earlier.
Jurors heard emotional and splashy testimony from Hunter Biden former romantic partners and read personal text messages. They saw photos of Hunter Biden holding a crack pipe and partially clothed, and phone videos of him showing crack weighed on a scale.
Your ex-wife and two ex-girlfriends testified before prosecutors about his habitual crack use and their failed efforts to help him get clean. One woman, who met Hunter Biden in 2017 at a strip club where she worked, described him smoking crack cocaine every 20 minutes or so while she stayed with him at a hotel.
Hunter Biden has not given a statement and it is unclear whether he will. But jurors heard him describe in detail his descent into addiction through audio clips played in his courtroom. 2021 memoir “Beautiful Things.” The book, written after he became sober, covers the period he had the gun but does not mention it specifically.
A key witness for prosecutors is Beau’s widow, Hallie, who had a brief troubled relationship with Hunter after his brother died of brain cancer. She found the gun unloaded in Hunter’s truck on Oct. 23, 2018, panicked and threw it in a trash can at a supermarket in Wilmington, where a man inadvertently retrieved it from the trash.
“I didn’t want him to get hurt and I didn’t want my kids to find out about this and get hurt,” Hallie Biden told jurors.
From the time Hunter returned to Delaware from a trip to California in 2018 until she threw away her gun, she did not see him using 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 saying she was waiting for a drug dealer and smoking crack. The first message was sent the day after he bought the gun. The second was sent the next day.
The defense suggested that Hunter Biden was trying to change his life at the time of purchasing the gun, having completed a detox and rehabilitation program in late August 2018.
“There is no evidence of contemporaneous drug use and gun possession,” defense attorney Abbe Lowell wrote in court documents filed Friday. “It was only after the gun was thrown away and the stress that followed…that the government was able to find the same type of evidence of its use (e.g., photos, use of drug jargon) that it had a drug relapse.”
Hunter Biden’s daughter, Naomi, took the stand for the defense on Friday, telling jurors about visiting her father while he was in a rehabilitation center in California, weeks before he bought the gun. She told jurors he seemed “hopeful” and was improving, and said she was proud of him. When she was excused from the stand, she paused to hug her father before leaving the courtroom.
The defense on Friday did not rule out calling another witness, but it was not clear who that might be. Hunter’s lawyers had previously said they planned to call as a witness Joe Biden’s brother James and he was in court on Friday. Testimony from other family members could open the door for more deeply personal messages to be presented to the jury.
President Joe Biden said last week he would accept the jury’s verdict and ruled out a pardon for his son. First Lady Jill Biden has been in court every day of the past week to support Hunter, except for Thursday when she was with the president in France to D-Day anniversary events.
It appeared that Hunter Biden would have avoided prosecution in the gun case entirely, but a deal last summer with prosecutors later imploded US District Judge Maryellen Noreika, who was appointed to the bench by former Republican President Donald Trump, raised concerns about this. Hunter Biden was later indicted on three felony weapons charges. He also faces a trial scheduled for September on criminal charges alleging he failed to pay at least $1.4 million in taxes over four years.
If convicted in the gun case, Hunter Biden could face up to 25 years in prison, though first-time offenders won’t get anywhere near the maximum, and it’s unclear whether the judge would give him time behind bars.
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Richer reported from Washington.
