Between Trump, Biden, and Kennedy, all corners of the campaign have kept a leg or two in court. Moving from RFK's endless lawsuits and drama filled Trump trial trackings, Jaggyish unpacks the latest developments in the Hunter Biden trial where Jill Biden has been boomeranging between France and Delaware to sit front and center in a Wilmington courtroom where her stepson is currently facing federal gun charges.
Delaware courts were busy this week with the trial of Hunter Biden, son of President Joe Biden. Hunter, a self-proclaimed visual artist, 2021 published author, laptop fumbler and crack cocaine enthusiast, is on trial for charges stemming from a 2018 purchase of a handgun. Hunter is charged with three crimes - Two counts of false statements made while purchasing a firearm, and a third count for possessing a gun while addicted to drugs. It is against the law for a drug user or addict to buy or possess a gun. If convicted, Hunter faces up to 25 years in prison. This trial comes after an unsuccessful plea deal with prosecutors that would have resolved the current gun case and a separate California tax case. Hunter Biden is now facing a separate trial beginning September 5, on charges of failing to pay $1.4 million in taxes.
In opening statements, prosecutors say that Hunter Biden was unfit to purchase a firearm while he was deep in drug addiction. They say the President’s son falsely described his lifestyle when he applied for the Colt Cobra revolver at a Delaware gun shop in 2018. Biden noted on the application that he was not a drug user during a time when his addiction to crack was running deep. Biden’s defense team argument ranges from sheer denial of an addiction, to a more tender plea that the now 54-year old was in no state of mind to comprehend making such a decision.
Evidence this week has included testimony from Biden’s former wife of 20 years, Kathleen Buhle, former girlfriend Hallie Biden (his late brothers ex wife) (who he dated) (after his brother died), a sex worker he spent significant quality time with, and excerpts of his own autobiography that details the years and the milestones of his addiction.
TUESDAY JUNE 4, 2024:
Prosecuting attorneys opened the trial with several long passages from Hunter Biden’s 2021 memoir “Beautiful Things.” Described as a “gripping story about the depths of his addiction,” Biden described “intense feelings of shame and guilt while crack plunged him into the darkest recesses of your soul.” Hunter wrote of his addiction with a “limitless appetite for debasement” and described careless experiences driving high in Arizona and buying drugs in the homeless community in Los Angeles.
Prosecutors pointed out the timeline of Hunter’s “four years of active addiction” from 2015 to 2019, which seemingly admits that the 2018 application for a firearm would be part of that timeline.
First Lady Jill Biden sat in the front row.
WEDNESDAY JUNE 4, 2024:
According to the Denver Post, on Wednesday June 4, Hunter Biden’s ex-wife and a former girlfriend testified Wednesday in his gun trial about finding his crack pipes and other drug paraphernalia, and jurors saw photos of the president’s son bare-chested in a bubble bath and heard about his visit to a strip club.
Hunters ex wife of twenty years, Kathleen Buhle, testified that Hunter left the family home after she discovered his drug use. Buhle told the jury that she discovered her then-husband was using drugs when she found a crack pipe in an ashtray on their porch on July 3, 2015, a day after their anniversary. When she confronted Hunter, “he acknowledged smoking crack,” she said. Next, Prosecutors called Zoe Kestan, 30, who met Hunter Biden in December 2017 at a strip club in New York where she worked. Kestan told the jury that during a private session at the strip club, Hunter pulled out a pipe and began smoking what she assumed was crack.
“He was incredibly charming and charismatic and friendly, and I felt really safe around him,” she said. “I remember after he had smoked it, nothing had changed. He was the same charming person.”
Kestan detailed for jurors when she saw him use drugs, buy drugs, talk about drugs or possess drug paraphernalia. Prosecutors asked her where he stored his drugs and pipes, and she testified he kept them in pouches and other places, such as a sunglasses cases. She remembers him smoking crack every “twenty minutes.”
First Lady Jill Biden sat in the front row.
THURSDAY JUNE 5, 2024:
Widow of his late brother Beau, Hallie Biden dated Hunter for some time in 2018. On Thursday, Hallie testified about her “terrible experience” witnessing Hunter Biden’s drug addiction in the months prior to her discovering a firearm in his vehicle. When Hallie Biden found a Colt Collar revolver, a speed loader, and bullets, in Hunter’s vehicle October 23, 2018, she said she “panicked,” stemming from a fear of his erratic behavior while on drugs.
Hallie Biden gave a detailed testimony of the day she found the weapon, and how she disposed of the gun into the garbage of a Janssen’s Market grocery store, where an innocent man inadverntantly collected the weapon when he was gathering trash. The incident ended when Hallie called the police to admit there had been an incident where she found a gun and threw it in a public trash bin. Hallie testified that along with the gun, she found “remnants” of crack in Hunter Biden’s vehicle.
Jurors were shown surveillance videos of Hallie Biden throwing the gun away and going into the grocery store, then returning later that morning to search for the firearm.
Hallie describes Hunters crack addiction. She said he used it “frequently - daily”
First Lady Jill Biden sat in the front row.
FRIDAY JUNE 6, 2024:
Prosecution rests its case, and the defense called Hunter’s eldest daughter, Naomi, 30.
According to reports, in October 2018, the month Hunter Biden bought the gun, Naomi traveled from Washington to New York in her father’s truck. The intention was for the daughter and father to swap vehicles, as Hunter drove Joe Biden’s Cadillac to New York later that month. “He seemed great. He seemed hopeful,” she said, after visiting him a few months earlier in a rehab center in Los Angeles. “He seemed the clearest I’d seen him since my uncle died.”
During cross examination, Prosecutors showed Naomi texts where her father didn't respond to her for hours after she messaged him about switching cars. At 2 a.m. Hunter texted Naomi asking for the keys to his truck and whether her boyfriend could meet and swap vehicles.
“Right now?” she responded.
“Do you know what your father was doing at two o’clock in the morning and why he was asking you for the car then?” prosecutor Leo Wise asked.
“No,” she said.
Wise read her a message from the same block of texts where Naomi says “I’m really sorry dad I can’t take this.”
“I’m sorry I’ve been so unreachable,” her father replied “It’s not fair to you.”
First Lady Jill Biden sat in the front row.
A WORD FROM THE PRESIDENT
Earlier this week, President Biden stayed neutral on allegations in a statement that read “I am the President, but I am also a Dad. Jill and I love our son, and we are so proud of the man he is today.”
Biden did tell ABC news that he will accept the jury’s verdict and ruled out a pardon for his son.
Attorneys and jury agreed to break for the weekend as the defense continues to decide whether or not Hunter Biden will take the stand on Monday
Related: Via Daily Mail
“On Friday, she sat in the front row while Naomi Biden testified on her father's behalf. She watched as her eldest granddaughter was ambushed on the witness stand about texts she had sent to her dad.
She has been steadfast in her support of Hunter, spending four days at the courthouse this week, including her birthday on Monday.
The only thing that her kept her away was her official first lady duties in France.
She'll put the courtroom aside on Saturday when she joins Brigitte Macron at the art museum and cultural center on the outskirts of Paris that is sponsored by the group LVMH, which owns Louis Vuitton. The French first lady often wears their clothing.
While not 'super close,' as one source close to them said, the two first ladies have a lot in common: they are both teachers, they both love literature and words. And they both enjoy a nice glass of wine.
'They are not super close - they met only two or three times but it always went well,' a source said.
They bonded in Italy over a glass of wine and then during a visit to the Planet Word Museum in Washington D.C. when the Macrons made a state visit in December 2022.”
Ironically the drug use and firearm are probably the smallest of his crimes. Peddling his father’s influence to foreign nations is far more serious.
Remember when Biden said he was going to “restore dignity” in the White House? These people are Jerry Springer level white trash with money. Except the money comes from selling all of us out. 10% to the Big Guy.