WILMINGTON, Del. (AP) — The widow of Hunter Biden’s brother on Thursday described the moment she found a revolver in his truck, placed it in 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 her car console in October 2018. “I didn’t want him to get hurt and I didn’t want my kids to find it and get hurt.”
Hunter Biden’s purchase of a Colt revolver and Harry Biden’s insane disposal of it are key elements of the case against him. Federal prosecutors say the president’s son was in the midst of a severe cocaine addiction when he bought the gun. He 3 feloniesHe lied to a federally licensed gun dealer, falsely representing himself as a drug user on an application, and illegally possessed a gun for 11 days.
Hunter Biden, who has maintained his innocence, claims the Justice Department is bowing to political pressure from Republicans and that he is being unfairly targeted.
Hallie Biden, who had a brief romantic relationship with Hunter after Beau Biden’s death in 2015, testified that she never saw him use drugs until he returned to Delaware from a trip to California in 2018 and threw away his guns — a period that includes the day he bought them.
Much of her testimony focused on Oct. 23, 2018, 11 days after he bought the gun and she threw it away. Hunter was with her and seemed exhausted. Asked by prosecutors if it appeared he had been using drugs around that time, she replied, “Maybe.”
While Hunter was sleeping at home, Hallie Biden went to check out his car. She said she wanted to help him get sober and get off alcohol and cocaine. She said she found crack cocaine residue and drug paraphernalia. She also found a gun Hunter had purchased in the box, but the lock was broken and it wouldn’t close all the way. There was also ammunition.
Harry thought about hiding the gun, but decided to throw it away because he was worried his children might find it.
“I know now it was a stupid idea, but I was panicking,” she said.
Hunter Biden watched her testimony from the courtroom, expressionless. She told jurors she found crack in his home and saw him using it, and that she sometimes accompanied him when he met with his dealers. Prosecutor Leo Wise asked Hallie about a 2018 trip to California where she visited Hunter at the Roosevelt Hotel and whether she had been using drugs, too.
“Yes, I was,” she said.
“So who introduced it to you?”
“Hunter did,” Harry said as Hunter put his face in his hands and looked down.
“What I went through was a terrible experience, I’m embarrassed, I’m ashamed and I regret that period of my life,” she added.
Harry testified that he had stopped using drugs in August 2018, but Hunter continued to smoke crack cocaine.
Much of the prosecution’s argument has been spent highlighting the severity of the defendant’s crack addiction, showing jurors shirtless moments with ex-girlfriends, affairs and crack pipes. They believe it was an error of judgment to prove he was actually using when he wrote “no” on the form. Prosecutors argue they need evidence to show the defendant’s state of mind at the time he bought the gun.
After Hallie Biden threw the gun in a trash can at Janssen’s Market, he noticed it was missing and asked if she had taken it.
“Are you crazy?” he texted. He told her to go back to the market and look for it.
Security camera footage played to the jury showed her rummaging through a trash can looking for the gun, but it wasn’t there. She asked the store clerk if someone had taken out the trash.
Harry said Hunter told him to report the gun to police because it was registered in his name, so he called police while he was at the store.
The Democratic president’s son appeared in court Thursday with a copy of his memoir, “Beautiful Things,” under his arm. The book, which he wrote after getting sober in 2021, figures heavily in the prosecution’s case. Prosecutors played audio excerpts for jurors in which the son detailed his turn to drugs and alcohol after losing his brother to cancer in 2015.
Lawyer Abe Lowell said Hunter Biden was in a different frame of mind when he wrote the book than when he bought the guns. He didn’t think he was a drug addict at the time, but Lowell suggested he may have had a drinking problem. Alcoholism doesn’t prevent someone from buying a gun.
Jurors also heard testimony from a gun store employee who testified that Hunter Biden explained his options before purchasing the $900 gun. The employee then watched the customer fill out a firearms transaction form — paperwork required to purchase a gun — and witnessed the customer check “no” when asked if he was an “unlawful user of or addicted to” marijuana, stimulants, opioids or other controlled substances.
“Everything he bought was ultimately his decision,” he told jurors.
Gordon Cleveland, a former employee at StarQuest Shooters & Survival Supply, said he saw Biden sign the paperwork, which also included a warning about the consequences for submitting false information.
During cross-examination Thursday, Lowell noted that some of the questions on the document were in the present tense, such as, “Are you an illegal drug user or addict?” She suggested Hunter Biden didn’t think he had a drug problem.
The procedure is as follows: Plea bargain That would have resolved the gun charges and a separate tax case and allowed the Biden family to avoid the spectacle of a trial with the 2024 election looming. First lady Jill Biden spent several days in court before joining President Joe Biden in France on the anniversary of the Normandy landings. Allies worry about the damage the process could do to the presidentHe is deeply concerned about his only surviving son’s health and the continuation of his drinking habit.
If convicted, Hunter Biden faces up to 25 years in prison, but nowhere near that maximum for a first-time offender, and it is unclear whether a judge will give him any prison time.
He is scheduled to face another trial in September. Indicted for failing to pay $1.4 million in taxes.
The trial was launched by Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee. Convicted of 34 felonies in New York City. The two criminal cases are unrelated, but their proximity underscores how central the courts are to the 2024 election campaign.
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Long report from Washington.
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