WILMINGTON, Del. (NewsNation) — Hunter Biden was back in a Wilmington, Delaware, courtroom Thursday as his federal gun trial continues.
The widow of Hunter Biden’s brother told jurors in his federal gun trial 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.”
The purchase of the Colt revolver by Hunter Biden — 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 heavy 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.
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, who had a brief romantic relationship with Hunter after his brother Beau Biden died in 2015, testified 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 time period included the day he bought the weapon.
Hallie Biden’s testimony
The prosecution called Hallie Biden to the witness stand Thursday. Hallie Biden is the widow of Hunter Biden’s late brother Beau Biden. However, Hunter Biden and Hallie Biden formed a romantic relationship after Beau Biden’s death.
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.
She found remnants of both drugs and pipes, and that’s when she found the gun in a locked box. However, the lock itself was broken. She said also found bullets.
Out of fear that Hunter Biden might hurt himself or her daughters might find the gun, Hallie Biden said she put the gun in a bag and then in the pouch Hunter Biden used for drugs. She then said she took it to a grocery store and threw it in the trash.
“I realize it was a stupid idea now, but I was panicked,” she told prosecutor Leo Wise.
When Hunter Biden realized the gun was missing, he asked her about it, and when he learned she tossed it, told her to go back to the market to look for it. Jurors were played surveillance footage of her unsuccessfully digging around in the trash can for the gun. Hunter Biden told Hallie Biden to file a police report. While officers located the man who inadvertently took the gun, along with other recylables from the trash, and retrieved it, the case was eventually closed because of lack of cooperation from Hunter Biden.
Prosecutors showed text messages in court revealing Hunter Biden acknowledged a drug dealing with “Mookie” on Oct. 13, 2018, the day after he bought the firearm.
Defense cross-examines Hallie Biden
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.
Defense lawyers asked Hallie Biden whether it was true that she knew sometimes he lied to her about his whereabouts. She acknowledged this was true, saying she often worried he was with other women. Hunter Biden’s lawyers suggested that he might have been lying about his whereabouts and activities when he texted Hallie Biden days after the gun purchase that he was smoking crack.
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.
Witness testimony
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.
After the jurors were dismissed Wednesday, federal prosecutor Derek Hines told the judge the prosecution had six more witnesses after gun store clerk Gordon Cleveland and that their testimony would be shorter. He said it is possible the prosecution could rest its case Thursday. If so, he said, the prosecution would like to know which witness or witnesses the defense might call.
Erika Jensen
Before the prosecution called three other witnesses to the stand Wednesday, defense attorney Abbe Lowell continued his cross-examination of FBI agent Erika Jensen, the prosecution’s first witness who testified Tuesday. Lowell, in talking Jensen through the timeline of chapters of Hunter Biden’s memoir, “Beautiful Things,” argued his client’s drug use dropped off when he returned to the East Coast before he purchased the handgun at a Wilmington, Delaware, gun store.
Lowell also focused his cross-examination of Jensen on Hunter Biden’s purchases of alcohol, not drugs, in October 2018, the same month when he bought the gun.
As he neared the end of his questioning, 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.
Kathleen Buhle
After Jensen, the jury heard three separate witness testimonies that detailed Hunter Biden’s drug addiction and gun purchase.
During the prosecution’s examination of Hunter Biden’s ex-wife, Buhle described the first time she found the pipe her ex-husband used to smoke crack cocaine. She said she was devastated and fearful for him, but not shocked because she had already suspected his usage due to his change in mood, attitude and anger.
Buhle said she suspected Hunter Biden was using drugs because he had been discharged from the U.S. Navy for cocaine use. She told the prosecutors she’d often find broken pipes, remnants of white powder and crystals in his car.
However, when cross-examined by the defense team, Buhle admitted she had never seen Hunter Biden using drugs.
Buhle and Hunter Biden were married for 24 years before their divorce in 2017.
Zoe Kestan
Kestan, a former girlfriend of Hunter Biden, was another witness called to testify Wednesday.
She detailed instances of his drug use, including when they first met at the New York strip club she was working at in 2017. During this instance, Kestan told the court, Hunter Biden took out a pipe and began smoking what she assumed was crack. For the next five days, Kestan said, she stayed with Hunter Biden in his hotel, where he was smoking crack around every 20 minutes.
Prosecutors showed jurors photos from Kestan’s cellphone showing a glass pipe on a bathroom counter at the Four Seasons hotel in New York City, as well as pictures from a stay in Los Angeles, including a bathroom selfie showing pipes and a beer bottle near Hunter Biden.
When cross-examined by Hunter Biden’s lawyer, Kestan said she had no contact with him in October 2018, when he bought the gun. Earlier in the day, however, Kestan testified that Hunter Biden invited her to visit him at a rental home in Massachusetts the following month. He told Kestan he was undergoing ketamine transfusions, which can be used to treat depression.
Gordon Cleveland
Gordon Cleveland, who sold Hunter Biden the firearm, testified Wednesday he watched Biden fill out the ATF form for gun purchases and watched him fill out the drug-related question at the heart of the case.
The form reads “Are you an unlawful user of, or addicted to, marijuana or any depressant, stimulant, narcotic drug, or any other controlled substance?”
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.
At one point, the physical gun was shown to the jury. Cleveland testified Hunter Biden paid for the firearm in cash.
Cleveland concluded his testimony on Thursday morning.
In his line of questioning toward Cleveland, Lowell emphasized the distinction between the use of “have” and “are” on the federal gun form Hunter Biden allegedly filled out when buying a gun.
Lowell suggested prosecutors have not proven Hunter Biden was using drugs when he bought the revolver or didn’t see himself as being “addicted to” drugs at the moment.
Cleveland testified that Hunter Biden did not appear to be under the influence of any drugs at the time he purchased the gun.
Criminal referral issued for Hunter Biden
House Republicans issued criminal referrals Wednesday against President Joe Biden’s son and brother, accusing them of making false statements to Congress as part of the GOP’s yearlong impeachment inquiry.
The Republican leaders of the House Oversight and Accountability, Judiciary and Ways and Means committees sent a letter to the Justice Department recommending the prosecution of Hunter Biden and James Biden and accusing them of making a “conscious effort” to undermine the House’s investigation.
Lowell said in a statement that the referrals are “nothing more than a desperate attempt by Republicans to twist Hunter’s testimony so they can distract from their failed impeachment inquiry and interfere with his trial.”
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.