Prosecution nears end of witness testimony

WILMINGTON, Del. (NewsNation) — Hunter Biden will be back in a Wilmington, Delaware courtroom on Thursday as his federal gun trial continues.

The president’s son was accused of lying on a federal form when he purchased a .38-caliber Colt Cobra Special in 2018. Hunter Biden falsely said he was not a drug user, despite being addicted to cocaine at the time. He has since pleaded not guilty to all charges against him.

It’s been an emotional week so far for the Biden family, as prosecutors wasted no time in detailing Hunter Biden’s drug addiction timeline and past traumas in court.

On Wednesday, Hunter Biden’s ex-wife, Kathleen Buhle, and an ex-girlfriend, Zoe Kestan, testified about the discovery of his crack pipes and other drug paraphernalia. Additionally, jurors were shown photos of the president’s son bare-chested in a bubble bath and heard about his visit to a strip club.

After the jurors were dismissed, federal prosecutor Derek Hines told the judge that the prosecution had six more witnesses after gun store clerk Gordon Cleveland and that their statements would be shorter. He said it’s possible the prosecution will rest its case on Thursday. If so, he said, the prosecution would like to know what witness or witnesses the defense could call.

Witness testimony

Erika Jensen

Before the other three witnesses testified Wednesday, defense attorney Abbe Lowell continued his cross-examination of FBI agent Erika Jensen, the prosecution’s first witness who testified Tuesday. Lowell, in explaining to Jensen the timeline of chapters in Hunter Biden’s memoir “Beautiful Things,” argued that his client’s drug use decreased when he returned to the East Coast before purchasing the gun at a drug store. weapons in Wilmington, Delaware.

Lowell also focused his interrogation of Jensen on Hunter Biden’s purchases of alcohol, not drugs, in October 2018, the same month he purchased the gun.

As he neared the end of the interrogation, Lowell attempted to undermine the credibility of Biden’s infamous laptop that was left in a repair shop and the authenticity of the messages found on the device. Lowell also tried to raise doubts about whether his client was telling the truth in some of his text messages.

Jensen said investigators were unable to verify whether Hunter Biden actually did what he claimed he was doing in texts used as evidence against him.

The form says “Are you an illegal user of or addicted to marijuana or any depressant, stimulant, narcotic or any other controlled substance?”

At one point, the physical weapon was shown to the jury. Cleveland testified that Hunter Biden paid for the firearm in cash.

Kathleen Buhle

After Jensen, the jury heard three separate witness statements that detailed Hunter Biden’s drug addiction and gun purchases.

During the prosecutor’s examination of Hunter Biden’s ex-wife, Buhle described the first time she found the pipe her ex-husband used to smoke crack cocaine. She said she was devastated and scared for him, but not shocked because she already suspected his use due to his change in mood, attitude and anger.

Buhle said he suspected Hunter Biden of using drugs because he was discharged from the U.S. Navy for cocaine use. She told prosecutors that she often found broken pipes, white powder and crystals in his car.

However, when questioned by the defense team, Buhle admitted that she had never seen Hunter Biden using drugs.

Buhle and Hunter Biden were married for 24 years before divorcing in 2017.

Zoe Kestan

Kestan, Hunter Biden’s ex-girlfriend, was another witness called to testify on Wednesday.

She detailed instances of his drug use, including when they met at the New York strip club where she worked in 2017. During that instance, Kestan told the court, Hunter Biden picked up a pipe and began smoking what she assumed it was crack. For the next five days, Kestan said, she stayed with Hunter Biden at his hotel, where he smoked crack every 20 minutes.

Prosecutors showed jurors photos from Kestan’s cellphone showing a glass pipe on the bathroom counter at the Four Seasons hotel in New York, as well as photos from a stay in Los Angeles, including a bathroom selfie showing pipes and a bottle of beer nearby. by Hunter Biden.

When questioned by Hunter Biden’s lawyer, Kestan said she had no contact with him in October 2018, when he purchased the gun. Earlier in the day, however, Kestan testified that Hunter Biden invited her to visit him at a rented house in Massachusetts the following month. He told Kestan that he was being transfused with ketamine, which can be used to treat depression.

Gordon Cleveland

Gordon Cleveland, who sold Hunter Biden the firearm, testified that he saw Biden fill out the ATF gun purchase form and watched him fill out the drug-related question at the heart of the case.

When the president’s son filled out the form, Cleveland said, he saw him answer “no” to the question about drug use and that he expressed no confusion or misunderstanding about the questions he was asked on the form.

Cleveland is expected to return to the stand Thursday morning.

Criminal Reference Issued for Hunter Biden

House Republicans issued criminal references Wednesday against President Joe Biden’s son and brother, accusing them of making false statements to Congress as part of the yearlong GOP impeachment inquiry.

Republican leaders of the House Oversight and Accountability, Judiciary, and Ways and Means committees sent a letter to the Justice Department recommending the indictment of Hunter Biden and James Biden and accusing them of making a “conscious effort” to undermine the House investigation. .

Lowell said in a statement that the references are nothing more than a desperate attempt by Republicans to distort Hunter’s testimony so they can divert attention from his failed impeachment inquiry and interfere with his trial.

Hunter Biden Accusations

Hunter Biden faces three felonies stemming from the purchase of a firearm in 2018, when he was, according to his memoirs, at the height of his crack addiction. He was accused of lying to a federally licensed gun dealer, making a false statement on the app used to screen firearm applicants when he said he was not a drug user, and possessing the gun illegally for 11 days.

He has pleaded not guilty and argued that he is being unfairly targeted by the Justice Department after Republicans condemned a now-defunct plea deal as special treatment for the Democratic president’s son.

The trial comes just days after Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee for 2024, was convicted of 34 crimes in New York City. A jury found the former president guilty of a scheme to cover up a secret payment to a porn star to prevent damage to his 2016 presidential campaign. The two criminal cases are unrelated, but their proximity underscores how the criminal court has taken center stage. of attention during the 2024 campaign.

Hunter Biden also faces a separate trial in California in September on charges of failing to pay $1.4 million in taxes. Both cases were supposed to be resolved through a collapsed plea deal with prosecutors last July, the culmination of a years-long investigation into his dealings.