The jury inside Hunter BidenThe federal gun trial will resume deliberations Tuesday morning to decide whether the president’s son knowingly lied on a form used to purchase a gun in October 2018.
Biden, 54, faces a maximum of 25 years in prison if convicted of all three charges: lying on a federal screening form, lying to a gun dealer and possession of the gun. But first-time non-violent charges typically receive shorter sentences.
The trial marks the first time a child of a sitting president has been tried for a crime.
What happened in court on Monday?
Jurors deliberated for about an hour Monday afternoon before court adjourned at 4:30 p.m
This came after the defense quickly rested its case Monday morning and moved to closing arguments, with both prosecutors and defense laying out their cases. Hunter Biden did not take the stand in his own defense.
TO OVERTAKE Live updates from the Hunter Biden trial: Deliberations begin in landmark case against the president’s son
Prosecutors argued that the evidence in the case is clear, even using Hunter Biden’s own words in text messages and memoir excerpts to show he used them in October 2018.
Wise highlighted the testimony of his ex-girlfriend Zoe Kestan, noting that she told the jury that Hunter Biden smoked crack long after his drug rehabilitation program in California and that drug paraphernalia was present in various parts of the house.
“She said it was all over,” Wise told the jury. “There was no sober companion there.”
He also noted a passage in Biden’s memoir in which he glowingly describes the rehabilitation stay: “The beauty, the peace, the support, until the moment I relapsed.”
Wise called this a “poignantly honest story” and told people he was relapsing.
However, attorney Abbe Lowell has tried to cast doubt on what prosecutors actually proved in their case. He began his closing arguments by reading a line from the jury instructions on “presumption or presumption.”
Lowell emphasized that prosecutors must prove that Biden “knowingly” lied.
“The word knowingly cannot be proven beyond a reasonable doubt,” Lowell said.
This article originally appeared in Delaware News Journal: Hunter Biden trial: Jury resumes deliberations in gun case Tuesday
