Hunter Biden prosecutors tell jurors to ignore first family ties as deliberations begin: ‘This is not evidence’

WILMINGTON, Del. — Federal prosecutors told the jury in first son Hunter Biden’s felony gun trial Monday not to let themselves be swayed by the presence of the president’s family — including first lady Jill Biden — throughout the proceedings.

The six-man, six-woman panel began deliberations at 3:33 p.m. and continued for one hour before breaking for the day, to return Tuesday at 9 a.m.

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Before the jurors retired to consider their verdict, prosecutor Leo Wise told them during his closing argument to look at the spectators — which included a group of Biden family members

“All of this is not evidence,” Wise said. “People sitting in the gallery are not evidence.”

Hunter’s half-sister Ashley Biden, wife Melissa Cohen Biden and first brother and sister James Biden and Valerie Biden Owens looked on alongside Jill.

Wise emphasized that the jury should only take witness testimony and physical and electronic evidence into consideration, adding for effect that “no one is above the law.”

Wise told the panelists in his summation that the government had proven a pattern of behavior by Hunter, now 54, that showed he was hooked on crack cocaine when he falsely insisted he did not use any controlled substances as a pre-condition to buying a .38-caliber Colt Cobra revolver on Oct. 12, 2018.

“We see in these messages [Hunter] buying drugs, telling other people he was using drugs, and describing himself as an addict,” said Wise, referring to evidence taken from the first son’s notorious laptop. “He had lost the power of self-control. That’s why he kept going to rehab. He couldn’t stop on his own.”

The Biden scion is charged with three felony counts connected to his claim to be clean on a federal firearm application form the day he walked out of a Wilmington gun store with the weapon.

Prosecutors from special counsel David Weiss’ office are not required to prove Hunter Biden was high on the day of the purchase but only that he was addicted around that time.

While presenting their case last week, prosecutors included audio excerpts from Hunter’s memoir “Beautiful Things,” in which he described finding crack cocaine as his “superpower.”

Witnesses for the prosecution included Hunter’s ex-wife and two of his former girlfriends, one of whom recounted that he used the street drug “every 20 minutes.”

“The evidence was personal. It was ugly, and it was overwhelming,” Wise acknowledged Monday. “It was also absolutely necessary.”

“The defendant used crack and was addicted to crack and knew he used crack and knew he was addicted to crack during the relevant time period,” the prosecutor added.

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“He didn’t use drugs by accident,” Wisse went on. “He knew he was using drugs and he knew he was addicted to drugs. Maybe if he’d never been to rehab, he could argue he didn’t know he was an addict.”

Hunter’s defense attorney Abbe Lowell has argued that his client didn’t knowingly lie about his addiction on Oct. 12, 2018, claiming instead that the first son was in a “deep state of denial.”

Wise went on to say that the jury should pay special attention to messages Hunter sent his daughter Naomi at around 3:00 a.m. on Oct. 18 — six days after buying the gun —in which he asked if he could pick up his Ford Raptor truck from her in Manhattan.

“Texting at 2:40 in the morning to come to Midtown to exchange the truck means the defendant was not OK,” the prosecutor added.

Hunter’s team attempted to claim that their client lied to Hallie Biden, his sister-in-law-turned lover, to get out of seeing her when he messaged her in the days after he bought the .38 that he was “waiting for a dealer named Mookie” and “sleeping on a car smoking crack.”

“If he didn’t want to see her, he didn’t need to make up an elaborate story about two drug deals,” responded Wise, adding Hunter could have just said he was in DC and not in Wilmington, where Hallie lived.

“You don’t leave your common sense behind when you come into that jury box,” he added, saying that while jurors may feel either “disgust or sympathy” at hearing about Hunter’s addiction, those emotions are irrelevant to the case.

“Addiction isn’t a crime,” the prosecutor said. “Lying to buy a gun is.”

When the defense’s turn came to close, Lowell doubled-down on his claim that Hunter didn’t intentionally lie on the application form.

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“That statement, when made, was not what he believed to be false,” he said. “The word ‘knowingly’ could not be proved beyond reasonable doubt.”

Lowell also told jurors to disregard Hunter’s own words in his 2021 book, which he said “was [written] after the fact.”

“It was not a diary,” the defense attorney claimed. “What did it say about 2018 between August when he went to The View [rehab facility] until the time he bought the gun? Nothing.” 

Lowell further argued that prosecutors condensed years worth of Hunter’s messages and seemingly damning photos of him smoking a crack pipe — taken in 2016, 2017 and in early 2018 — to convince the jury about what happened on the day he bought the gun.

But there were “no such photos” from August until October of 2018, Lowell said.

Wise appeared to anticipate Lowell’s argument when the prosecutor said: “The United States is not required to prove the defendant used drugs on Oct. 12 when he bought the gun.

“The United States is not required to prove he used drugs from Oct. 12 to Oct. 23. There is no requirement that the United States prove use [of drugs] in the month of October.”

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Noting that Hunter had told Hallie “that’s my truth” in the message that claimed he was “sleeping on a car smoking crack,” Wise told the jury to “Take the defendant’s word for it. That’s his truth.”

Lowell also accused prosecutors of unfairly cherry-picking Hunter’s bank statements to invite “conjecture and suspicion” against his client, adding there wasn’t direct evidence Hunter used his large cash withdrawals on drugs.

The defense lawyer accused prosecutors of trying to embarrass Hunter by asking one of his ex-girlfriends, Zoe Kestan, how much younger she was than the Biden son and by highlighting Hunter’s wealth. 

Zoe Kestan testified she was 24 when she first started dating Hunter, who was 48 at the time.  

Lowell also said Hallie Biden had been “incredibly stupid” when she threw Hunter’s revolver into a supermarket trash can on Oct. 23, 2018, after finding it in the console of Hunter’s Ford Raptor — while calling Hunter the responsible one for urging her to call the police when she proved unable to retrieve it.

The biggest flashpoint came when Lowell said that prosecutors had been “extraordinarily cruel” to Naomi Biden when they cross-examined her about what she knew of her dad’s drug use.

“Who called the defendant’s daughter as a witness in this case?” prosecutor Derek Hines asked during a brief rebuttal to Lowell. “Not us.”

Hines argued that Naomi’s anguish during her testimony came from “sitting there, knowing she was testifying as a defense witness, but she had to tell the truth.

“She couldn’t vouch for the defendant’s sobriety in October [2018].”

Hines also said the frequency of Hunter’s crack use debunked Lowell’s contention that Hunter didn’t think of himself as an addict when he bought the gun. 

“Someone who holds a crack pipe to their mouth every 15 minutes knows they’re an addict,” the prosecutor said, adding that the presence of cocaine traces on the pouch Hallie Biden put the gun in to dispose of it amounted to “evidence that the defendant was using drugs during the time he had the gun.”

“The laws at issue in this case exist to prevent crack addicts and crack users from owning guns,” Hines said. “If this evidence didn’t establish Hunter Biden was a crack addict and unlawful user, then no one is a crack addict or unlawful user.”