WILMINGTON, Del. (AP) – Jurors will resume deliberations Tuesday in the criminal trial of President Joe Biden’s son over a gun Hunter Biden purchased in 2018 when prosecutors said he was in the grips of a crack cocaine addiction.
Jurors deliberated for less than an hour before leaving the federal courthouse in Delaware Monday afternoon. They are weighing whether Hunter Biden is guilty of three felonies in the case that pits the younger Biden against his father’s Justice Department in the midst of the president’s reelection campaign.
Prosecutors over the past week have used testimony from his ex-wife and former girlfriends, photos of Hunter Biden wearing drug paraphernalia and other tawdry evidence to prove he lied when he checked “no” on the form at the gun store asking whether he had lied. was “an unlawful user of or addicted to” drugs.
“He knew he was using drugs. The evidence shows that. And he knew he was addicted to drugs. The evidence shows that,” prosecutor Leo Wise told jurors in his closing arguments Monday.
Hunter Biden’s substance abuse struggles after his brother’s death in 2015 Beau are well documented. But the defense has argued that he did not consider himself an “addict” when he bought the gun and checked “no” on the form asking if he was “an unlawful user” of drugs or addicted to them.
Hunter Biden’s lawyers have tried to show that he was trying to turn his life around at the time of the gun purchase, after completing a rehabilitation program in late August 2018. The defense called three witnesses, including Hunter’s daughter Naomi, who told jurors that her father seemed to be getting better in the weeks before he bought the gun.
And the defense told jurors that no one actually witnessed Hunter Biden using drugs during the 11 days he had the gun before Beau’s widow, Hallie, found it in Hunter’s truck and threw it in a trash bin. Defense attorney Abbe Lowell suggested that prosecutors presented circumstantial evidence, the way a magician might present a card trick, in an attempt to get jurors to focus on one hand and ignore the other.
“With my dying breath in this case, I ask for the only verdict that will hold prosecutors to what the law requires of them” – a verdict of “not guilty,” Lowell said in his final address to jurors.
But prosecutors have shown jurors text messages sent in the days after the gun purchase in which Hunter Biden told Hallie he was waiting for a dealer and smoking crack. Hallie and Hunter dated briefly after Beau’s death. Prosecutors have also said they found cocaine residue on the baggie Hallie put the gun in before throwing it in a trash bin outside an upscale supermarket.
First lady Jill Biden, the president’s brother James and other family members watched from the front row of the courtroom as the defense argued its case Monday without calling Hunter Biden to the witness stand. Since the trial began last week, the first lady has been in court almost every day.
Before the case went to the jury, the prosecutor urged jurors to focus on the “overwhelming” evidence against Hunter Biden and not pay attention to members of the president’s family sitting in the courtroom.
“None of this is evidence,” Wise said, extending his hand and directing the jury to look at the gallery. “People sitting in the gallery are not evidence.”
The defense has tried to poke holes in the case by pressing the prosecution’s witnesses about their memories of certain events. Hunter Biden’s attorney told jurors to consider the testimony of Hallie and another ex-girlfriend “with great care and caution,” noting their immunity agreements with prosecutors in exchange for their testimony.
The proceedings took place in the president’s home state, where Hunter Biden grew up and where the family has deep roots. Joe Biden was a senator in Delaware for 36 years and commuted daily to Washington, and Beau Biden was the state’s attorney general.
Hunter Biden didn’t testify, but jurors heard his voice repeatedly as prosecutors played audio clips from his 2021 memoir “Beautiful Things,” in which he talks about hitting bottom after Beau’s death and descending into drugs and alcohol before his eventual sobriety in 2019.
Hunter Biden had hoped last year to resolve a long-running federal investigation into his business dealings under a deal with prosecutors that would have avoided the spectacle of a trial so close to the 2024 election. Under the deal, he would have pleaded guilty to tax crimes and avoided prosecution in the gun case if he had stayed out of trouble for two years.
But the deal fell apart after District Judge Maryellen Noreika, who was nominated by Trump, questioned unusual aspects of the proposed agreement, and lawyers were unable to resolve the case.
Attorney General Merrick Garland then appointed top investigator David Weiss, the U.S. attorney for Delaware, as special counsel last August, and Hunter Biden was indicted a month later.
Hunter Biden has said he was charged because the Justice Department bowed to pressure from Republicans who alleged the Democratic president’s son received special treatment.
Under that deal, prosecutors would have recommended two years of probation. In the weapons case, the three charges carry a maximum penalty of 25 years in prison, although the sentence will ultimately be up to the judge and it is unclear whether she would put him behind bars if convicted.
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Richer reported from Washington. Associated Press journalists Mike Catalini and Matt Slocum in Wilmington and Colleen Long in Washington contributed to this report.
