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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Hallie Biden concedes 'it's difficult to recall' details from 2018
Under cross-examination from defense attorney Abbe Lowell, Hunter Biden's former girlfriend Hallie Biden said some of her memories of their interactions from the time of the gun purchase are vague.
Lowell began his questioning by saying he understood that it was a "fairly upsetting" period and that "being here is no picnic either."
Hallie Biden conceded that "it's difficult to recall" exactly where Hunter was at specific moments or whether he was where he suggested he was, at one point saying that "it's all kind of vague."
"Reconstructing this is not easy?" Lowell asked her.
"Correct," she replied.
Hallie Biden, the widow of Hunter Biden's late brother Beau Biden, testified that the "remnants" of crack she found in Hunter Biden's car on Oct. 23, 2018 -- the day she discovered then discarded the firearm -- could have been from weeks or months earlier.
"You didn't see him doing drugs or alcohol" the day you discarded the gun, Lowell inquired.
"Correct," she said.
At one point Lowell's cross-examination descended into a bit of chaos as both Lowell and Hallie Biden struggled to follow the proper protocols to get her text messages admitted into evidence.
"So far so good," Abbe said at one point.
"Well, no," prosecutor Leo Wise objected.
Jurors rubbed their eyes and gazed around as the back-and-forth continued, with the courtroom bursting into laughter on several occasions. At one point, Hallie Biden appeared to look over at her fiancé sitting in gallery, shrugging her shoulders and appearing to mouth the words "I don't know."
Court was subsequently recessed for lunch.
Hallie Biden details text messages following gun buy
Prosecutor Leo Wise read through text messages Hunter Biden's then-girlfriend Hallie Biden exchanged with him in the days following his gun purchase and on the day that she discovered and discarded it, asking her on the stand to provide context for their communications.
Within days of buying the gun, Hunter Biden texted her that he was about to meet a drug dealer named "Mookie." Hallie Biden testified that she thought that to mean "that he was buying crack cocaine."
In another message, Hunter Biden wrote that he was "buy" and then seconds later added "ing." Asked how she interpreted that message, Hallie Biden said, "I mean, I would guess but I didn't know for sure."
In the messages, Hallie Biden repeatedly expressed concern for him, at one point saying explicitly that she didn't want him to die. Wise asked her if she was worried that he would overdose on drugs.
She said "Yes," but added that she was also worried he might die by "suicide, I didn't know."
Wise then asked her to describe the messages the two exchanged on the morning she threw the gun away.
"It's hard to believe anyone is that stupid," Hunter Biden wrote to her.
"He was angry with me" for discarding his gun and putting him in legal jeopardy, Hallie Biden told jurors.
"I'm a liar and a thief and a blamer and a user and I'm delusional and an addict," Hunter Biden texted her.
She texted back, "Let's do this right," and suggested "working on sobriety" together.
Asked what she meant by "sobriety" -- alcohol or drugs or both -- Hallie Biden replied, "Well, if you're sober, it's all of the above."
Hallie Biden describes finding then discarding gun
In dramatic testimony, Hunter Biden's former romantic partner Hallie Biden described how, on the morning of Oct. 23, 2018, she went to go "clean out" Hunter Biden's car and found a gun.
"What did you find, in addition to trash and clothes?" prosecutor Leo Wise asked her.
"Remnants of crack cocaine and some paraphernalia," Hallie recounted. "Oh and the gun, obviously."
Hallie Biden said she found the firearm in "the arm console" of the car, which she said was not locked because "the lock had been broken." She said it was the first time she had ever seen a gun. She also found ammunition.
"I panicked, I wanted to get rid of them," she told the jury.
Asked why she panicked, Hallie Biden said she "didn't want him to hurt himself." She said she also worried about her kids finding the gun, saying she considered "hiding" it somewhere but was worried they would find it.
She said those frantic moments led to her throwing the gun in the trash. She told the jury she found a pouch to put it in -- which authorities say later tested positive for having cocaine on it -- and put the gun inside. The jurors were then shown the brown pouch she used.
"I was afraid to kind of touch it, I didn't know if it was loaded," Hallie Biden said, telling jurors she then put the pouch into another bag.
"I took it to the grocery store up the road and I threw it away," she testified.
At this point, jurors were shown surveillance video from the grocery store showing Hallie Biden throwing the gun into the trash.
In the video, her car is seen pulling into the parking lot; she then gets out of the driver's seated, opens the back door to get out the gun, then walks over to the store and places the bag in a garbage receptacle.
"Is that you Mrs. Biden?" prosecutor Leo Wise asked about her image on the video. "Yes," she replied.
Hunter Biden, sitting at the defense table, appeared to be locked on Hallie Biden the entire time, his head resting in his hand. He periodically covered his mouth.
Hallie Biden testifies about Hunter Biden's drug use
Hunter Biden's former romantic partner Hallie Biden told jurors that Hunter Biden was "tired, exhausted, and looked like he hadn't slept" on the evening of Oct. 22 or early morning of Oct. 23, 2018, when he arrived at her home in Wilmington to sleep.
She observed that he "could've been" on drugs when she saw him -- just hours before she found his newly purchased Colt Cobra revolver in his car and discarded it in a dumpster.
"I went to clean out his car and his stuff" as he slept in her home, in hopes that when he awoke they could "start anew and deal with stuff," she testified, referring to his addiction to "both" drugs and alcohol.
The testimony didn't appear to be quite the smoking gun sought by prosecutors, who are trying to prove Hunter Biden was using crack at the time of his firearm purchase on Oct. 12 -- one of the central questions in the case.
Hallie Biden, who is the widow of Hunter Biden's late brother Beau Biden, testified that earlier in 2018 she also became addicted to crack after Hunter Biden introduced her to the drug -- but that she is now clean.
"It was a terrible experience I went through," she said, adding that she was "embarrassed and ashamed, and I regret that period of my life."
Prosecutors introduce infamous laptop as evidence
Prosecutors have introduced Hunter Biden's infamous laptop as evidence while questioning FBI agent Erika Jensen, their first witness.
Prosecutors asked Jensen about email messages found on the laptop and in Hunter Biden's iCloud account that appear to be about his drug use in 2018.
The government had said in pretrial court filings that it was planning to introduce materials on the laptop as evidence in the case.
The laptop has become a symbol of the legal and political controversy surrounding the president's son in recent years. Attorneys for Hunter Biden had previously attempted to preclude the laptop as evidence in the trial, arguing that they have "numerous reasons to believe the data had been altered and compromised before investigators obtained the electronic material."
But special counsel David Weiss argued in court filings that attorneys for Hunter Biden had not "provided any evidence or information that shows that his laptop contains false information," and the judge agreed to admit it as evidence.
Data from the laptop was purportedly obtained and later disseminated in 2019 by a Wilmington, Delaware, computer repairman after the laptop had been dropped off at his shop for repair.
With that context in mind, prosecutors did not rely on the laptop on its own; investigators said they cross-referenced every email, WhatsApp message, iMessage, and text message with Apple Inc. to establish the credibility of the data.
"Ultimately, in examining that laptop, were investigators able to confirm that it was Hunter Biden's laptop?" prosecutor Derek Hines asked Jensen.
"Yes," Jensen said.
"How?" Hines asked.
"Among other things, there was a serial number that's on the back of this laptop that matches the Apple subpoena records that they obtained in 2019, so it matches the registration of this particular device to the iCloud account at a particular date," Jensen said.
"So from the data from the laptop and the hard drive, did you -- what did you do next, or what did the FBI do next when assessing the addiction evidence?" Hines asked.
"So from the data that was extracted from both the iCloud back ups and this -- the laptop, investigators were able to go through largely WhatsApp messages, iMessages, and text messages, and found evidence of addiction within the messages," Jensen said.
Prosecutors also showed jurors an invoice for $85 from the computer repair shop where Hunter Biden dropped off the laptop for repair, which had been sent to an email address belonging to Hunter Biden.
"You said Apple Inc. provided that ... from the iCloud?" Hines asked.
"Yes," Jensen said.