Federal prosecutors rested their case Friday against President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter, during a trial in Delaware on charges he illegally bought a gun while addicted to drugs.
Attention now shifts to defense lawyers, who called as their first witness an employee of the store where Hunter Biden bought the revolver in October 2018. They haven’t indicated whether he’ll will take the stand. If he does, it would be risky because prosecutors would be able to directly question the younger Biden about his drug use and state of mind when he bought a pistol.
Five days of prosecution witnesses during the trial included dramatic testimony from Biden’s ex-lovers, who described seeing him in the throes of addiction from 2015 to 2019. Prosecutors also read salacious excerpts from the younger Biden’s memoir, “Beautiful Things.”
The government’s case has left little doubt that Biden was addicted to crack cocaine and that when he filled out a form to buy the gun, he checked “no” to a question about whether he was an active unlawful user of any controlled substance.
Still, no evidence has been presented showing Biden was on drugs Oct. 12, 2018, when he bought the gun and filled out the form.
Biden’s lawyers have indicated his defense rests on a technicality that he didn’t knowingly violate the law because he may have thought he was clean at the time he purchased the gun. Prosecutors counter that they don’t have to prove he was on drugs when he made the purchase.
Meanwhile, the president has said he’ll respect the jury’s verdict in the case and ruled out a pardon if his son is convicted of federal firearms violations.
The case is US v. Biden, 23-cr-00061, U.S. District Court, District of Delaware (Wilmington).
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