WILMINGTON, Del. (NewsNation) — The jury in Hunter Biden’s federal gun trial ended its week by hearing emotional testimony from Biden’s daughter, Naomi, about her father’s drug addiction and recovery efforts. The prosecution rested its case after calling two final witnesses to testify Friday.
The big question when the trial resumes Monday is: Will Hunter Biden take the stand? Defense attorneys hinted that they’ll take the weekend to decide. James Biden, Hunter’s uncle and the brother of President Joe Biden, may also testify for the defense.
If the defense rests, the jury could get the case as early as Monday afternoon, depending on the length of closing arguments.
Hunter Biden buying a Colt revolver — and Hallie Biden’s frenzied disposal of it — are the fulcrum of the case against the president’s younger son. Hallie Biden, the widow of Beau Biden, the president’s late eldest son, was in a brief romantic relationship with Hunter Biden when this happened.
Federal prosecutors say Hunter Biden was in the throes of a 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 potential pardon for his son.
Final prosecution witness testimonies
The final two witnesses to testify were forensic chemist James Brewer and DEA special agent Joshua Romig.
Brewer testified he found white powder in Hunter Biden’s pouch and it tested positive for cocaine.
Defense lawyer David Kolansky conducted the cross-examination of Brewer — the first cross-examination that wasn’t done by defense attorney Abbe Lowell.
Kolansky hammered home two points in his cross-examination: There was a “minimal amount of residue” in the pouch, and the first lab test was done in October 2023, five years after it was confiscated and after charges had been filed in the case. Brewer confirmed that no tests had been done before October 2023.
Romig was shown various images and videos already presented in court and asked to identify the drugs and paraphernalia in them. In one of the texts, the word “Fentan” comes up. Romig said it’s a reference to fentanyl, the “most dangerous drug in America today.”
Lowell began his cross-examination by telling him, “I’d like if I can in the time I’m here to talk about this case, and not generalities,” an apparent swipe at prosecutor Derek Hines for asking about generalities of drug use.
Romig said, “Nothing that I’ve reviewed would indicate” Hunter Biden was a distributor of drugs.
Naomi Biden takes witness stand for defense
Hunter Biden’s daughter was called to the witness stand on Friday.
“Things got bad when my uncle died,” Naomi Biden said about her dad’s drug use. Naomi Biden’s uncle, and Hunter’s brother Beau, died in 2015 of a brain tumor.
However, Naomi Biden testified Friday that her father was the “cleanest” she’d seen him since her uncle died during a visit to New York City. This NYC trip came in October 2018, the month Hunter Biden bought the gun. Naomi Biden had traveled from Washington to New York in her father’s truck to move her boyfriend’s belongings.
At the time, Naomi Biden said, she and her then boyfriend had Hunter Biden’s truck, where the gun was located but locked in the center console. Although she and her boyfriend tried to open the console, Naomi Biden said they couldn’t.
Later that month, Hunter Biden drove Joe Biden’s Cadillac to New York so he could retrieve the truck. He left the Cadillac with Naomi. She told jurors she didn’t see any drug paraphernalia or evidence of drug use in that vehicle.
“He seemed great. He seemed hopeful,” she said.
Prosecutors showed Naomi Biden texts where he didn’t respond to her for hours after she messaged him about switching cars.
In response to a question by Prosecutor Leo Wise, Naomi said her father “never” used drugs in front of her.
“If he was using, fair to say you didn’t know what that looked like?” Wise asked.
“I guess not,” Naomi Biden said.
Hallie Biden’s testimony
Hallie Biden, who had a brief romantic relationship with Hunter after his brother Beau Biden died in 2015, testified Thursday 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 period included the day he bought the weapon.
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.
She told jurors 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.”
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.
“I realize it was a stupid idea now, but I was panicked,” she told prosecutor Leo Wise.
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.
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.
More witness testimony
Jurors heard testimony from four other witnesses this week: Hunter Biden’s ex-wife, Kathleen Buhle; his former girlfriend, Zoe Kestan; FBI special agent Erika Jensen and the gun seller, Gordon Cleveland.
On Thursday, Cleveland wrapped up his witness testimony, saying he watched Hunter Biden fill out the ATF form for gun purchases. 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.
Cleveland testified that Hunter Biden did not appear to be under the influence of any drugs at the time he purchased the gun.
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.
Jensen’s testimony, which began Tuesday as the prosecution’s first witness, also wrapped up on Wednesday. Jensen was assigned to investigate Hunter Biden and specifically looked for evidence and abuse of drugs.
Jenson summarized the timeline of Hunter Biden’s addiction from 2014 to 2019 during her testimony. The prosecution played audiobook excerpts from Hunter’s memoir detailing his addiction, which was read and recorded by Hunter Biden himself.
As he neared the end of his questioning, Hunter Biden’s defense attorney Abbe 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.
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.