Hunter Biden gun trial: 'Politics never came into play,' juror says after guilty verdict
The president's son was convicted of unlawfully purchasing a firearm.
President Joe Biden's son Hunter Biden has been found guilty on three felony counts related to his purchase of a firearm in 2018 while allegedly addicted to drugs.
The younger Biden, who pleaded not guilty last October after being indicted by special counsel David Weiss, denied the charges. The son of a sitting president had never before faced a criminal trial.
The trial came on the heels of former President Donald Trump's conviction on felony charges related to a hush money payment made to boost his electoral prospects in the 2016 presidential election.
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Hunter Biden's ex-wife says he could function while on drugs
Taking the stand as a prosecution witness, Hunter Biden's ex-wife Kathleen Buhle described how, after 25 years, their marriage deteriorated under the weight of his drug and alcohol addiction.
Buhle said she first learned of Hunter Biden's crack addiction when she discovered an empty crack pipe in an ash tray on their side porch the day after their anniversary in 2015. Hunter Biden was kicked out of the Navy in 2014 for testing positive for cocaine, and Buhle said ever since then she was "worried, scared" he would abuse drugs again.
When he was on crack, Buhle testified, "He was not himself … angry, short-tempered, acting in ways he wouldn't when he was sober."
She said she would find drug "remnants in little bags" and drug paraphernalia like "a broken crack pipe" -- often enough that she would search his car before allowing her daughters to use it.
In what could be a blow to one of Abbe Lowell's lines of defense, Buhle said Hunter Biden frequently interacted with friends and family, worked, and socialized while under the influence of crack cocaine -- and would often try to hide it from those close to him.
"Did you see him, for lack of a better word, function?" prosecutor Leo Wise asked.
"Yes," Buhle confirmed.
Prosecutors argue that cash withdrawals were for drugs
On redirect examination of FBI Special Agent Erika Jensen, prosecutor David Hines heavily pushed back on the defense's suggestion that no text messages showed Hunter Biden buying drugs during the time he purchased a gun, and their contention that his large cash withdrawals could have been for other purposes.
Hines returned to the key text message Hunter sent while he owned the gun, telling his then-partner Hallie Biden that he was "sleeping on a car" smoking crack.
"You understand what that means, right?" Hines asked the FBI agent.
"Yes," she responded.
"Crack is crack," Hines said.
Hines then returned the issue of Hunter Biden's large cash withdrawals -- over $150,000 in three months -- pushing back on the suggestion from the defense that he used the cash to pay for other things, such as Airbnb rentals.
Hines displayed bank records that showed Hunter paid for Airbnb rentals with a Visa check card.
Hines also pointed out that when Hunter Biden bought alcohol, he did so with a credit card instead of cash -- making the point that drug dealers generally favor cash transactions.
Defense shows only 2 October texts referenced drugs
Hunter Biden's attorney, Abbe Lowell, questioned FBI Special Agent Erika Jensen about Hunter Biden's infamous laptop, which prosecutors entered into evidence yesterday, asking her on cross-examination if she had done an "analysis" of whether "data" or "content" of the laptop was "tampered with, added to, or subtracted" during the months that passed between when Hunter Biden dropped off the device for service in April of 2019 and when the FBI obtained it in December 2019.
Jensen said she had not.
Lowell also took aim at the numerous text messages prosecutors have presented as evidence of Hunter Biden's drug addiction in 2018 and 2019.
Lowell showed that only two messages among the several alluding to drug use, drug paraphernalia, and drug purchases occurred during October of 2018 -- the period during which Hunter Bidden procured the firearm. The rest were either other months before the incident or months afterward, Lowell showed.
"You don't see any references … to baby powder?" Lowell asked Jensen, before ticking through other drug terms that appeared in the messages earlier in 2018 or later in 2019, including "chore boy" and "party favors."
Each time, Jensen replied "No."
Lowell also questioned Jensen about two messages Hunter Biden sent around the time of his gun purchase that did allude to drug use, one of them referring to an alleged drug dealer named "Mookie" and other referencing "smoking crack on a car" in Wilmington. Lowell sought to establish that Jensen had no firsthand knowledge about the contents of the messages.
"Do you know if there is a person named Mookie?" Lowell asked.
"No," Jensen replied.
"Do you know if he was on a car smoking crack?" Lowell asked later, referring to Hunter Biden.
"No," Jensen said.
Lowell subsequently ended his cross-examination of Jensen, and prosecutors undertook their redirect examination.
Defense argues Hunter Biden was abusing alcohol, not drugs
On cross-examination, defense attorney Abbe Lowell asked FBI Special Agent Erika Jensen about the timeline of the text messages, photos, and chapters of Hunter Biden's memoir to argue that his client was not using drugs during the time of the gun purchase.
Lowell showed the jury bank statements that chronicled a series of alcohol purchases made by Hunter Biden in the days leading up to the gun purchase and after, suggesting that he was consuming alcohol and not recreational drugs.
Jensen also testified that several of the photos prosecutors showed the jury of drug substances and what appeared to be a crack pipe were taken months after the gun purchase.
Defense calls government's case 'conjecture and suspicion'
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.