WILMINGTON, Del. (NewsNation) — The federal gun trial against President Joe Biden’s son continued Wednesday following an emotional day in court for the Biden family Tuesday.
Hunter Biden’s ex-wife and a former girlfriend testified about finding his crack pipes and other drug paraphernalia, and jurors saw photos of the president’s son barechested in a bubble bath and heard about his visit to a strip club.
Hunter Biden has been accused of lying on a federal form when he bought a .38-caliber Colt Cobra Special in 2018. Hunter Biden falsely said he was not a drug user, despite being addicted to cocaine at the time. He has since pleaded not guilty to all charges against him.
After the jurors were dismissed, 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.
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.
Abbe Lowell, Hunter Biden’s attorney, 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’s ex-wife testifies
The prosecution called Hunter Biden’s ex-wife Kathleen Buhle to testify Wednesday and was done with her examination in less than 10 minutes.
The prosecution zeroed in on Hunter Biden’s drug abuse, and 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 find broken pipes, remnants of white powder and crystals in the car.
She testified she began searching his car periodically, especially when one of their daughters wanted to use the car. When Buhle did her sweeps beforehand to make sure no drugs were inside, she found crack on multiple occasions.
Buhle also described her therapy sessions with Hunter Biden where he had acknowledged he had an addiction problem. However, she said he wouldn’t go to rehab despite her urging him to go.
Buhle and Hunter Biden were married for 24 years before their divorce in 2017.
The defense also had a very short and direct cross-examination of Buhle, who continued to insist she found drugs and paraphernalia in Hunter Biden’s car.
However, toward the end of her cross-examination, defense attorney Abbe Lowell asked Buhle if she had ever seen Hunter Biden using drugs. She responded, “No.”
Defense cross-examines FBI agent
Before Buhle took the stand Wednesday, Lowe 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 the laptop and the authenticity of the messages found on the device.
“Did you find out if any of the files had been tampered with before the FBI obtained them in 2019?” he asked Jensen.
“I did not,” Jensen replied.
Lowell also tried to cast doubts on whether his client was telling the truth in some of his text messages.
In the first message, Hunter Biden said he was meeting a dealer named “Mookie” near a minor league baseball park in Wilmington. In the second message, Hunter Biden said he was smoking crack “on a car” at a street corner in downtown Wilmington.
But 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.
Jensen said, “No,” when asked if she knew if those events really happened. She also said she did not know if “Mookie” even existed.
Hunter Biden’s ex-girlfriend’s testimony
Zoe Kestan, a former girlfriend of Hunter Biden, was another witness who was 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 cell phone 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.
Man who sold Hunter Biden gun speaks
Gordon Cleveland, who sold Hunter Biden the firearm, testified 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.
When Hunter Biden 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.
The form reads “Are you an unlawful user of, or addicted to, marijuana or any depressant, stimulant, narcotic drug, or any other controlled substance?”
At one point, the physical gun was shown to the jury. Cleveland testified Hunter Biden paid for the firearm in cash.
Cleveland told Hines the type of car Biden drove to the gun store. When Hines asked how he knew, Cleveland said, “I like guns and cars,” prompting laughter in the courtroom.
Cleveland testified he saw Biden sign the gun form. When Hines asked if Biden was in the courtroom, Cleveland pointed to him and said, “Yes, he’s sitting next to his attorney.” Biden waved twice.
During cross-examination, Abbe Lowell introduced himself as the “lawyer sitting next to Hunter Biden.” Both Cleveland and Hunter chuckled.
Cleveland is set to be back on the stand Thursday morning.
First witness testimony
On Tuesday, prosecutors called Jensen to the stand as their first witness. Jensen was assigned to investigate Hunter Biden and specifically looked for evidence and abuse of drugs.
The prosecution looked to use Jensen’s testimony to introduce much of the digital evidence in the case, including embarrassing and intensely personal messages and images from Hunter Biden’s laptop.
Jenson summarized the timeline of Hunter Biden’s drug addiction from 2014 to 2019 during her testimony. The prosecution also played audiobook excerpts from Hunter’s memoir detailing his addiction, which was read and recorded by Hunter Biden himself.
Listening to the audiobook recordings took an emotional toll on Biden family members. Ashley Biden, the president’s daughter and Hunter Biden’s half sister, was seen wiping tears from her eyes. First lady Jill Biden was seen putting her head down a few times during the excerpts, but her face remained unreadable. Hunter Biden held his hand over his mouth almost the entire time, looking bothered by the audio being played.
It was also during this testimony that prosecutors introduced Hunter Biden’s laptop to the jury. The infamous laptop was left at a Delaware repair shop in 2019, and Jensen testified that authorities were able to verify it belonged to Hunter Biden using its serial number and other Apple records.
Prosecution opening statements
During opening statements Tuesday, prosecutor Derek Hines hammered the point that “no one is above the law, no matter what your name is.” Hines mentioned it at least three times in the first few minutes of the prosecution’s statement.
He meticulously walked the jury through the 4473 gun form that Hunter Biden filled out and allegedly lied on, saying there isn’t a system in place to prevent drug users from getting guns other than this “self-check” box on the form.
The prosecutor also described the romantic relationship between Hunter Biden and his late brother’s widow, claiming that he introduced Hallie Biden to crack cocaine and influenced her addiction. Hines shared texts between the two in which Hunter Biden told her he was meeting with a dealer behind a local grocery store. Hines also pointed to another message in which Hunter Biden claimed he’d gotten high and fallen asleep.
Hines then laid out how after 11 days of owning the gun, Hallie Biden had concerns for Hunter Biden. She allegedly took his gun, wrapped it up in his leather pouch (which he used to transport cocaine) and threw it in an open garbage can behind a grocery store, Hines said.
It was then found by a man who regularly looked through garbage cans for recyclables, the prosecution argued.
Hunter Biden was then reportedly angry when he found out Hallie Biden had taken his gun and demanded they retrieve it, but it had already been found, the prosecution continued.
Defense opening statements
Hunter Biden’s defense team’s argument hinges on two claims: that Hunter Biden didn’t knowingly break the law because he was clean and in between relapses when he filled out the gun application, and that the gun sellers were eager to sell to Hunter Biden because of who he is, overlooking protocol.
Defense attorney Abbe Lowell argued that the 4473 form’s language wasn’t clear, explaining that it doesn’t ask, “Have you ever used drugs?” Rather, it says, “Are you a drug user?”
Lowell noted that in other places on the form, it does use the phrase, “Have you ever?” But on the drug question, it specifically does not.
Regarding the text messages between Hunter Biden and Hallie Biden, Lowell urged the jury to pay attention to the dates of the text messages about drug use that the prosecution will show. He said they won’t be dated just before Hunter bought the gun on Oct. 12, 2018, but rather that they would be dated shortly after Hunter left a rehab facility in California, where he was working on getting clean.
Lowell argued that Hunter Biden truly considered himself not to be a drug user at that moment. After the gun was found, and he and Hallie got into a big fight, the stress of that situation caused Hunter Biden to relapse, Lowell argued.
The defense told the jury that the evidence would show Hunter Biden was acting normally in the few days around his gun purchase, and that normal behavior is impossible had he been addicted to and using crack during that period.
“There are functioning alcoholics. There’s no such thing as a functioning crack addict,” Lowell said.
It was highlighted by Lowell that Hunter Biden never disputed that he had a history of drug use, saying Hunter Biden, like millions of Americans, had real struggles with addiction.
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.
The Associated Press and NewsNation’s Rich Johnson contributed to this report