WILMINGTON, Del. (AP) – Jurors who will decide whether to become president Joe Biden‘s son faces federal gun charges and hears deeply personal testimony about a dark period for Hunter Biden.
The case, unfolding in federal court in Wilmington, Delaware, stems from a gun the younger Biden bought in October 2018, months before his father announced his bid for the presidency.
Prosecutors say Hunter Biden lied when he swore he was not a drug user on a federal form he filled out at the gun shop. He had the gun for about eleven days before it was thrown in a garbage can.
Hunter Biden’s attorney claims his client did not believe he was in the grips of addiction when he declared in paperwork that he did not have a drug problem.
Hunter Biden should have avoided prosecution in the gun case altogether, but a deal with prosecutors collapsed last year. He was subsequently charged with three weapons offenses. He also faces a trial scheduled for September on misdemeanor charges alleging he failed to pay at least $1.4 million in taxes over four years.
Here’s a look at some key witnesses in the trial:
KATHLEEN BUHLE
One of the prosecutors’ first witnesses was Hunter Biden’s ex-wife, who filed for divorce in 2016 after more than twenty years of marriage. They have three children together. In divorce proceedings, she accused him of wasting their money on drugs, alcohol, strip clubs and prostitutes.
On the witness stand, Buhle described learning about Hunter Biden’s drug use when she found a pipe used to smoke crack cocaine in an ashtray on their porch in July 2015, weeks after Hunter’s brother Beau died of brain cancer.
When she confronted Hunter, “he acknowledged he was smoking crack,” she told jurors.
Buhle testified that she suspected Hunter was using drugs even before she found the crack pipe, as he had previously been kicked out of the Navy after testing positive for cocaine.
“I was definitely worried and scared,” said Buhle, who was subpoenaed by prosecutors.
She also said she searched the family car for drugs when her children were riding in it. But under questioning from Hunter’s attorney, she acknowledged she never saw him use drugs.
HALLIE BIDEN
A key witness expected to appear for prosecutors is Beau’s widow, who had a romantic relationship with Hunter Biden after his brother’s death.
When their relationship became public in 2017, Joe Biden and his wife Jill said in a statement that the couple had their “full and complete support,” adding, “We are all lucky that Hunter and Hallie found each other while they were pursuing their risking life. Together again after so much sadness.”
Hunter detailed their troubled romance in his memoir “Beautiful Things,” writing, “As much as we desperately thought we could be the answers to each other’s pain, we only made each other worse.”
Hallie Biden found the gun in Hunter Biden’s truck days after he bought it and threw it in a trash can at a Wilmington supermarket. Hunter Biden told police in 2018 that she took the gun away because she was concerned about his mental health, according to a police report.
Hunter became angry when he discovered she had thrown the gun away, but it was no longer there when she went back to look for it. A man collecting recyclables found it and gave it to police.
Jurors have already seen text messages between the pair that prosecutors are using to try to prove Hunter Biden knew he was addicted to drugs, even though he said on the form he wasn’t.
During a late-night conversation shortly after purchasing the gun, Hallie asked Hunter where he was. Hunter responded that he was standing behind a baseball stadium in downtown Wilmington “waiting for a dealer.”
ZOE KESTAN
Kestan, another former romantic partner, was given immunity in exchange for her testimony for prosecutors.
She described meeting Hunter in December 2017 at a New York strip club where she worked. During a private session with her and another girl, he pulled out a pipe and started smoking what she assumed was crack, she testified.
“He was incredibly charming, charismatic and friendly, and I felt very safe with him,” she said. “I remember after he smoked it, nothing had changed. He was the same charming person.”
The two met again a few weeks later in New York. She said she stayed at his hotel for five days, a period during which she said Hunter Biden smoked crack perhaps every 20 minutes. At one point during their time together, he asked her to meet his drug dealer and take him to the room, she told jurors.
But Kestan acknowledged she had no contact with Hunter Biden in October 2018, the month he purchased the gun.
JAMES BIDEN
The defense plans to call President Biden’s brother to the witness stand, who is close to Hunter Biden and has helped his cousin through rehabilitation periods in the past.
Outside of the case, James Biden’s business dealings have made him a target of Republicans, who questioned both him and Hunter Biden in their stalled impeachment inquiry. Joe Biden told lawmakers during a voluntary private interview in February that the president “has never had any involvement or any direct or indirect financial interest” in his business ventures.
Republicans in the House of Representatives accused Joe Biden and Hunter Biden on Wednesday of making false statements to Congress and sent criminal referrals to the Justice Department. The claim involving James Biden centers on a statement he made about whether the president, though a private citizen, met with a former business associate of the Biden family.
James Biden’s lawyer called the Republicans’ action a “transparent and cynical attempt to distract from Donald Trump’s recent criminal conviction and retaliate.”
Hunter Biden’s attorney, Abbe Lowell, said it was “nothing more than a desperate attempt by Republicans to distort Hunter’s testimony so they can distract from their failed impeachment inquiry and interfere with his trial.”
GORDON CLEVELAND
Cleveland sold Hunter Biden the .38 caliber revolver at a gun shop in Wilmington in 2018.
The former gun store employee, testifying for prosecutors, told jurors he was standing next to Hunter Biden as he began answering a series of questions about the federal form everyone must fill out when purchasing a gun. Hunter checked a box saying he was buying the gun for himself, Cleveland said.
Another question asked whether the buyer was “an unlawful user of or addicted to” marijuana, stimulants, narcotics or any other controlled substance. Hunter Biden wrote “no,” Cleveland said.
He also testified that Hunter asked no questions and expressed no confusion about the question. Hunter Biden paid $900 in cash and told Cleveland to keep the change — about $13.
Cleveland told jurors he saw Hunter sign the form, which includes a warning about the consequences of submitting false information.
