By Jack Queen and Tom Hals
WILMINGTON, Delaware (Reuters) – Prosecutors are expected to drop their case against the case President Joe Biden‘s son Hunter Biden Thursday after presenting evidence showing he lied about his drug use to illegally buy a gun in 2018.
The jury in the first criminal trial of a US president’s child has heard testimony from witnesses, including his ex-wife and an ex-girlfriend, about 54-year-old Hunter Biden’s prolific drug use in the past, which he has publicly acknowledged .
Federal prosecutor Derek Hines said the government could call its final witness on Thursday. Hunter Biden and his lawyers have not said whether he will testify in his own defense, a risky move that most criminal defendants avoid because they expose themselves to questions from prosecutors.
Hunter Biden has pleaded not guilty to three charges, accusing him of failing to disclose his use of illegal drugs when he purchased the gun in October 2018 and of illegally possessing the gun for 11 days.
During a hearing in 2023, he told the judge in the case that he had been sober since 2019.
Defense attorney Abbe Lowell told jurors during opening statements that Biden was not using drugs when he bought the gun and did not intend to deceive because he did not see himself as a drug user at the time.
The trial in federal court in Wilmington, Delaware, follows another historic first: last week’s criminal conviction of Donald Trump, the first U.S. president to be found guilty of a crime. Trump is the Republican challenger to Joe Biden, a Democrat, in the Nov. 5 election.
On Wednesday, jurors heard that Hunter Biden would prepare crack at the swanky Chateau Marmont in Los Angeles or spend days in hotel rooms getting high in the months before his 2018 gun purchase, according to his ex-girlfriend.
“He would want to smoke as soon as he woke up,” Zoe Kestan told jurors as she described encounters with a “scary” drug dealer and searched the Internet for instructions on how to cook powdered cocaine into crack.
Biden’s ex-wife Kathleen Buhele briefly testified about finding crack pipes and drugs in their home and in Hunter Biden’s cars before they split in 2017.
Hallie Biden, the widow of the president’s late son Beau Bidenwill also testify about Hunter Biden’s drug use.
(Reporting by Jack Queen and Tom Hals; Editing by Scott Malone and Deepa Babington)
