WILMINGTON, Del. (NewsNation) — The prosecution in Hunter Biden’s federal gun trial is expected to call its final two witnesses to testify on Friday. The defense is also expected to announce whether Hunter Biden will testify.
Hunter Biden buying a Colt revolver — and Hallie Biden’s frenzied disposal of it — are the fulcrum of the case against him. Federal prosecutors say the president’s son was in the throes of a crack addiction when he bought the gun. He’s been charged with three felonies: lying to a federally licensed gun dealer, making a false claim on the application by saying he was not a drug user and illegally having the gun for 11 days.
The widow of Hunter Biden’s brother told jurors Thursday about the moment she found the revolver in his truck, describing how she put it into a leather pouch, stuffed it into a shopping bag and tossed it in a trash can outside a market near her home.
“I panicked, and I wanted to get rid of them,” she testified about finding the gun and ammunition in the vehicle’s console in October 2018. “I didn’t want him to hurt himself, and I didn’t want my kids to find it and hurt themselves.”
Hunter Biden, who has pleaded not guilty, has said the Justice Department is bending to political pressure from Republicans and that he’s being unfairly targeted.
Meanwhile, President Joe Biden said in an interview with ABC he would accept the jury’s verdict and ruled out a pardon for his son.
Hallie Biden’s testimony
Hallie Biden, who had a brief romantic relationship with Hunter after his brother Beau Biden died in 2015, testified Thursday that from the time Hunter returned to Delaware from a 2018 trip to California until she threw his gun away, she did not see him using drugs. That period included the day he bought the weapon.
Hallie Biden’s testimony was expected to be the most dramatic yet, especially since she was testifying with full immunity. She discussed how she too was using drugs with Hunter Biden. The prosecution emphasized that it was Hunter Biden who introduced Hallie Biden to hard drugs and is responsible for her addiction.
Hallie Biden testified that Hunter Biden introduced her to crack in 2018.
“It was a terrible experience that I went through, and I’m embarrassed and ashamed, and I regret that period of my life,” she added.
While Hallie Biden stopped using drugs in August 2018, she said Hunter Biden continued smoking crack.
Hallie Biden finds Hunter Biden’s gun
Hallie Biden testified that on Oct. 23, 2018, Hunter Biden came to her house after days away. She said she was looking to “clean out” his truck, sweeping it for drugs or pipes — which she claimed she did regularly.
“I realize it was a stupid idea now, but I was panicked,” she told prosecutor Leo Wise.
During the cross-examination of Hallie Biden, the defense emphasized that she never saw Hunter Biden using drugs from Oct. 6, 2018, through Oct. 23, 2018. It was during that period when Hunter bought his gun.
Lowell suggested that Hallie Biden’s testimony was unreliable because Hunter Biden often lied to her about where he was or what he was doing. Lowell worked to cast reasonable doubt on Hunter Biden’s whereabouts, arguing that the text messages between the two are not reliable evidence and Hunter Biden could have been lying about his drug use.
More witness testimony
Jurors heard testimony from four other witnesses this week: Hunter Biden’s ex-wife, Kathleen Buhle; his former girlfriend, Zoe Kestan; FBI special agent Erika Jensen and the gun seller, Gordon Cleveland.
On Thursday, Cleveland wrapped up his witness testimony, saying he watched Hunter Biden fill out the ATF form for gun purchases. When the president’s son filled out the form, Cleveland said, he saw him answer “no” to the question about drug use and that he expressed no confusion or misunderstanding about the questions he was being asked on the form.
Cleveland testified that Hunter Biden did not appear to be under the influence of any drugs at the time he purchased the gun.
On Wednesday, Hunter Biden’s ex-wife, Kathleen Buhle, and a former girlfriend, Zoe Kestan, testified about finding his crack pipes and other drug paraphernalia. Plus, jurors saw photos of the president’s son bare-chested in a bubble bath and heard about his visit to a strip club.
Jensen’s testimony, which began Tuesday as the prosecution’s first witness, also wrapped up on Wednesday. Jensen was assigned to investigate Hunter Biden and specifically looked for evidence and abuse of drugs.
Jenson summarized the timeline of Hunter Biden’s addiction from 2014 to 2019 during her testimony. The prosecution played audiobook excerpts from Hunter’s memoir detailing his addiction, which was read and recorded by Hunter Biden himself.
As he neared the end of his questioning, Hunter Biden’s defense attorney Abbe Lowell tried to undermine the credibility of Biden’s infamous laptop that was left at a repair shop and the authenticity of the messages found on the device. Lowell also tried to cast doubts about whether his client was telling the truth in some of his text messages.
Jensen said investigators couldn’t verify that Hunter Biden actually did what he claimed he was doing in the texts being used as evidence against him.
Hunter Biden charges
Hunter Biden faces three felonies stemming from a 2018 firearm purchase when he was, according to his memoir, in the throes of a crack addiction. He has been accused of lying to a federally licensed gun dealer, making a false claim on the application used to screen firearms applicants when he said he was not a drug user, and illegally having the gun for 11 days.
He has pleaded not guilty and has argued he’s being unfairly targeted by the Justice Department after Republicans decried a now-defunct plea deal as special treatment for the Democratic president’s son.
The trial comes just days after Donald Trump, Republicans’ presumptive 2024 presidential nominee, was convicted of 34 felonies in New York City. A jury found the former president guilty of a scheme to cover up a hush money payment to a porn actor to fend off damage to his 2016 presidential campaign. The two criminal cases are unrelated, but their proximity underscores how the criminal courtroom has taken center stage during the 2024 campaign.
Hunter Biden is also facing a separate trial in California in September on charges of failing to pay $1.4 million in taxes. Both cases were to have been resolved through a now-defunct plea deal with prosecutors last July, the culmination of a yearslong investigation into his business dealings.
