By Jack Queen and Tom Hals
WILMINGTON, Delaware (Reuters) – The ex-wife of the U.S. president Joe Biden‘s son Hunter Biden He is expected to testify Wednesday about the younger Biden’s drug use, with prosecutors alleging he lied about illegally buying a gun.
Prosecutors told jurors hearing the historic first trial of a U.S. president’s child that evidence will show Hunter Biden knowingly lied about his drug use in screening paperwork when he bought a revolver in October 2018, as his attorney countered that Hunter Biden did not use drugs. the time and had no intention of misleading.
Jurors were shown text messages, banking information and excerpts from the audiobook version of Hunter Biden’s memoir, which prosecutors say prove he was routinely using crack around the time he bought the gun, including the day after he made the purchase.
“Addiction is not a crime. Lying is,” said prosecutor Derek Hines.
Hunter Biden, 54, has pleaded not guilty to three charges accusing him of failing to disclose his use of illegal drugs when he purchased the gun and of illegally possessing the gun for 11 days.
The trial follows another historic first: last week’s criminal conviction of Donald Trump, the first US president to be found guilty of a crime. Trump is the Republican challenger to Joe Biden, a Democrat, in the Nov. 5 election.
Nothing said during Hunter Biden’s trial directly addressed this issue, although the prosecutor said that “no one is above the law.”
Hines told jurors they would next hear from Hunter Biden’s ex-wife Kathleen Buhle, as well as his ex-girlfriend Zoe Kestan, and Hallie Biden, his late brother’s widow. Beau Biden. All three can speak to Hunter Biden’s years-long struggle with drugs and alcohol, Hines said.
Hunter Biden’s attorney Abbe Lowell said the president’s son has been open about his struggles with addiction, which he documented in his 2021 memoir, “Beautiful Things.” He told jurors that the evidence will show that Hunter Biden was sober when he bought the gun and did not consider himself a drug user at the time.
Trump will be sentenced on July 11 after being convicted by a jury in New York state court last Thursday of 34 felonies for falsifying documents to cover up hush money paid to a porn star to cover a sex scandal shortly before the US 2016 to be avoided. election.
He has pleaded not guilty in three other ongoing criminal cases, two of which related to his efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss to Biden and one in which he was accused of unlawfully retaining classified national security documents after leaving office in 2021.
(Reporting by Jack Queen and Tom Hals; Editing by Scott Malone and Stephen Coates)
