WILMINGTON, Del. (AP) — Jurors in Hunter BidenThe criminal trial looked at the .38 caliber Colt revolver he purchased in October 2018. They saw form 4473, the weapons transaction file at the heart of the case. And they’ll hear testimony from the former store clerk who watched the president’s son check “no” when asked whether he was “an unlawful user of or addicted to” marijuana, stimulants, narcotics or any other controlled substance.
Federal prosecutors have argued that Hunter Biden was in the throes of a severe crack addiction when he bought the gun, and they have accused him of lying on the form. He has been charged with three crimes: lying to a federally licensed gun dealer, making a false claim on the application by saying he was not a drug user and illegally possessing the gun for 11 days.
Hunter Biden has pleaded not guilty and said the Justice Department is bowing to political pressure from Republicans and that he was unfairly targeted.
Gordon Cleveland, the former clerk at StarQuest Shooters & Survival Supply, told jurors that he walked Hunter Biden through a few options before settling on the $900 gun and watched Biden sign the form, which includes a warning about the consequences of submitting false information.
“Everything he bought was ultimately up to him,” he told jurors.
Much of the prosecution’s case so far has been devoted to highlighting the severity of his crack addiction and showing jurors bare-chested ex-girlfriends, infidelity, crack pipes – errors of judgment they say prove he was actively using when he checked off no . Prosecutors argue it is necessary evidence to prove his state of mind when he purchased the gun.
The proceedings are unfolding after a plea deal collapsed that would have resolved the gun charge and a separate tax case, sparing the Biden family the spectacle of a trial so close to the 2024 election. Now first lady Jill Biden is spending her days in court President Joe Biden travels to France for the D-Day anniversary. Allies worry about the toll this will take on the president, who is deeply concerned about the health and continued sobriety of his only living son.
And Hunter Biden’s friends and family are being called to testify.
Kathleen Buhle, who was married to Hunter Biden for 20 years, told jurors Wednesday that she discovered her 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 him, “he admitted he was smoking crack,” she said.
Buhle testified that she suspected he was using the drugs before she found the drugs. He had been kicked out of the Navy after testing positive for cocaine.
“I was definitely worried, scared,” she said. They have three children and divorced in 2016 after his infidelity and drug abuse became too much, according to her memoir “If We Break,” about the dissolution of their marriage.
Buhle, who was subpoenaed, stood on the stand for a brief twenty minutes. She remained calm but seemed upset as she described how she had searched his car for drugs about a dozen times each time the children drove in it.
“Have you ever seen Hunter do drugs?” attorney Abbe Lowell asked Buhle.
“No,” she replied.
Prosecutor Leo Wise then asked Buhle how she knew Hunter Biden was using drugs.
“He told me,” she said.
Prosecutors also called Zoe Kestan, who testified under immunity about a December 2017 meeting with Hunter Biden at a New York strip club where she worked. During a private session, he pulled out a pipe and started smoking what she assumed was crack.
“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.”
Kestan informed jurors when she saw him using drugs, buying drugs, talking about drugs or possessing drug paraphernalia. Prosecutors asked her where he kept his drugs and pipes, and she testified that he kept them in baggies and other places, such as sunglasses cases.
Under cross-examination, Kestan acknowledged she had had no contact with him in October 2018, when he purchased the gun.
Jurors also were shown dozens of pages from Hunter Biden’s memoir, “Beautiful Things,” written in 2021 after he got sober. And they heard long audio excerpts from the book, which follow his addiction after the death of his brother, Beau Biden, from cancer in 2015. The memoir covers the period when he purchased the gun, although the gun is not specifically mentioned.
Lowell has said Hunter Biden’s state of mind was different when he wrote the book than it was when he bought the gun, when he didn’t believe he had an addiction. And he has suggested that Hunter Biden might have felt at the time that he had a drinking problem, not a drug problem. Alcohol abuse does not preclude the purchase of a weapon.
If convicted, Hunter Biden faces up to 25 years in prison, although first-time offenders won’t get close to the maximum, and it’s unclear whether the judge would give him a prison sentence.
He also faces a separate trial in September on charges of failing to pay $1.4 million in taxes.
In Congress, Republicans have been conducting an impeachment inquiry for months to link President Biden to his son’s business dealings. So far, Republican lawmakers have failed to uncover evidence that directly implicates President Biden in any wrongdoing. But on Wednesday, House Republicans accused Hunter Biden and the president’s brother, James Biden, of making false statements to Congress as part of the investigation.
The trial comes shortly after Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, was convicted of 34 crimes in New York City. The two criminal cases are unrelated, but their proximity underlines how the courts have been central to the 2024 campaign.
___
Long reported from Washington. Associated Press writer Farnoush Amiri contributed to this report.
___
Follow the AP’s coverage of Hunter Biden at https://apnews.com/hub/hunter-biden.
