Under cross-examination by defense attorney Abbe Lowell, gun store clerk Gordon Cleveland testified about the sequence of events on Oct. 12, 2018, when he sold Hunter Biden the handgun at the center of the case -- with Cleveland and Lowell at times squabbling over details as granular as the direction of Hunter Biden's vehicle when he drove into the store's parking lot.

Cleveland will return to the stand Thursday morning when proceedings continue.

Prosecutor Derek Hines told the judge before court concluded for the day that he anticipated resting his case as soon as the end of the day on Thursday. The government has six brief witnesses remaining, he said.

Lowell said that if the government rests its case by the end of the day Thursday, he would be prepared to call his first witness on Friday morning.

Gun store clerk Gordon Cleveland testified that he watched from "about two feet" away as Hunter Biden, in the course of purchasing a handgun in 2018, filled out Form 4473 and checked the box asking applicants whether they were active drug users.

After Hunter Biden selected the Colt Cobra for purchase, Cleveland said he asked him to fill out Form 4473, which he told him was required for "every gun purchase." Cleveland testified that he instructed Hunter Biden to write in his personal information and answer the questions below, "and to take your time answering them," he said.

Cleveland testified that he watched as Hunter Biden answered several questions on the form before he approached question 11.E., which asked about drug use.

"You saw him strike that box with an 'X'?" prosecutor Derek Hines asked.

"Yes," Cleveland said.

"He didn't seem to express any confusion by that question?" Hines asked.

"No," Cleveland said.

With gun store employee Gordon Cleveland on the witness stand, members of the jury saw the Colt Cobra .38 Special that Hunter Biden purchased from Cleveland on Oct. 12, 2018, at StarQuest Shooters in Wilmington, Delaware.

Prosecutor Derek Hines said the encased gun was rendered safe by marshals and asked the judge to allow him to approach with the weapon.

He first brought the gun to the witness stand where Cleveland read aloud the serial number, and then took it to the jury box, where jurors saw the gun that prosecutors argue Hunter Biden obtained illegally by lying on a federal form.

Prosecutors then moved on to question Cleveland about Form 4473, the form that Hunter Biden filled out when he purchased the gun.

Defense attorney Abbe Lowell, cross-examining Hunter Biden's former girlfriend Zoe Kestan, sought to renew his argument that Hunter Biden was not actively using drugs in October 2018 by emphasizing that Kestan wasn't in contact with him at that time and would not know.

Kestan testified that she wasn't in touch with Hunter Biden from Sept. 23, when they were in Malibu together, until November, when he summoned her to Massachusetts while he was trying out a new ketamine therapy program.

As such, Kestan testified she had "no idea" that he had gone back to Delaware, or what he was doing at that time.

"So you didn't see him between those two dates?" Lowell asked.

"No," she said.

Lowell also sought to cast Kestan as an enabler of Hunter's addiction.

"You helped him get drugs?" Lowell asked.

"Yes," Kestan responded.

Prosecutors pushed back on that argument by highlighting their significant age gap: Kestan was 24 at the time of the relationship, while Hunter Biden was 48.

"Twice my age," she testified.

Kestan subsequently concluded her testimony and stepped down from the witness stand. Prosecutors then prepared to called to the stand Gordon Cleveland, the gun shop employee who sold Hunter Biden the firearm in 2018.

Defense attorney Abbe Lowell, in his closing argument, urged jurors to dispense with the government's "conjecture and suspicion" and find his client not guilty on all three counts.

"We have had Hunter's life in our hands" until now, Lowell said, referring to his legal team. "And now we have to give it to you."

Lowell repeatedly referred to prosecutors' case as a "magicians' trick" -- to "watch this hand and pay no attention to that one," as he said -- arguing that prosecutors failed to "fill in the gaps" about Hunter Biden's drug use around the time of his firearm purchase "because they don't have the proof."

Lowell also referred to prosecutors' strategy of showing Hunter Biden's pattern of drug use as an "accordion," meant to "compress" the timeline and make it seem to jurors that he was actively using drugs in October 2018, when he said on a government form that he was not addicted to drugs in order to purchase a Colt handgun.

The defense attorney also attacked some of the tactics prosecutors used, calling their treatment of Hunter Biden's daughter Naomi Biden "extraordinarily cruel" and saying that many of their questions and evidence were introduced with the intention of "embarrassing Hunter."

He also asked jurors to recall gaps in the recollections of Hunter Biden's then-girlfriend Hallie Biden, and suggested they should remember the immunity agreement she struck with prosecutors for her testimony.

"These are serious charges that will change Hunter's life," he said of the three felony charges the president's son faces, adding that "it's time to end this case."

Following Lowell's closing, the government was scheduled to have a short rebuttal, at which point the judge was to finish her jury instructions before the jury gets the case.