Hunter Biden's Gun Case Explained

The prosecution will argue that Hunter Biden knowingly lied on the federal form ("ATF Form 4473") by falsely attesting he was not an unlawful user or addict of a controlled substance, i.e. crack cocaine, when he was both, thereby violating federal law; thus, by lying, Hunter Biden was able to illegally buy the gun, a Colt Cobra 38SPL revolver, on October 12, 2018, and he chose to unlawfully possess that firearm until it was taken from his possession about a week and a half later on October 23, 2018.

If convicted, the charges are punishable by up to 25 years in prison, plus $750,000 in fines and nine years of supervised release.

In order to find Hunter Biden guilty, the jury must find that the prosecution proved the following beyond a reasonable doubt:

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1. Hunter Biden was either using or addicted to crack cocaine.
   • The jury need not find that he is both, but it must find he is one of those two.
2. He made the false statement of sobriety when he filled out the form.
3. He knew the statement was false.
4. The false statement was material to the sale's lawfulness.
   • In other words, the sale would not have occurred had he answered otherwise.
5. When he had the handgun, he was doing drugs or an addict.
   • The prosecution is not required to establish that he simultaneously did drugs at the precise time he possessed the gun.
   • Rather, it is sufficient that the prosecution prove that he "actively engaged" in substance abuse and that it occurred "recently enough" in proximity to the period Hunter Biden possessed the gun. Accordingly, the defense was denied the ability to argue or suggest that the government must show Hunter Biden did drugs on the day of the gun's purchase.
   • As stipulated by the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) in its firearm regulations, an inference of current drug use may be drawn from a pattern of usage or possession that "reasonably covers" the timeframe that the firearm was in the defendant's possession. As for drug addiction, the prosecution's proposed jury instructions define it as "habitually" using or to the extent that the drug addict has "lost the power of self-control."

According to the 20-page brief the prosecution prepared, special counsel David C. Weiss outlined the trove of evidence — physical and digital — that prosecutors will present at trial and what witnesses are lined up to testify against the First Son.

The Book

Exhibit 1 attached to the trial brief are photocopies of pages from Hunter Biden's book, Beautiful Things.

The excerpts include Hunter Biden's own admissions of "hardcore" drug use that he published and widely distributed. He self-identified as a crack addict, "someone who's up twenty-four hours a day, smoking every fifteen minutes, seven days a week."

"I was a crack addict and that was that. F**k it," Hunter Biden wrote when describing a call with a drug connection.

On Pages 219 and 220, Hunter Biden admitted that he was actively addicted to crack cocaine between 2015 and 2019.

"By the time my plane touched down in Los Angeles in March 2019, I had no plan beyond the moment-to-moment demands of the crack pipe," Hunter Biden wrote, adding that "nearly four years of active addiction [...] preceded this trip to California," which included a half-dozen rehab attempts repeatedly ending in failure. Everything that followed his arrival in L.A. was "a genuine, dictionary-definition blur of complete and utter debauchery," he typed. "I was doing nothing but drinking and drugging."

In Chapter Nine, titled "California Odyssey," Hunter Biden described doing drugs the day he first landed at LAX in the spring of 2018, swiftly tearing through the streets of L.A. He called this ability to easily "find crack anytime, anywhere" his "superpower."

At the conclusion of this summer-long California bender, with the aid of his uncle, Hunter Biden checked into "The View," a luxury rehab center in Brentwood, to detox. Via search warrant, the prosecution obtained a "DTX/Stabilization" form—dated mid-August 2018—and invoices documenting his six-day stay. However, he relapsed roughly two weeks later, which he went on to admit.

In "Chapter Ten: Lost Highway," Hunter Biden said he couldn't "stay sober" and never ended up "getting clean" through therapy.

That fall, Hunter Biden went eastbound, ultimately landing in Delaware. Regarding his return, he wrote: "[A]fter my most recent relapse in California, [I had] the hope of getting clean through a new therapy and reconciling with Hallie. Neither happened."

Then, Hunter Biden spent a short stint at a therapist-run wellness center in Newburyport, Massachusetts.

However, he headed back toward Biden's home state of Delaware not long afterward to continue to smoke crack, spending several weeks living in "a series of low-budget, low-expectations motels" up and down Interstate 95, between New Haven and Bridgeport, exchanging "L.A.'s $400-a-night bungalows and their endless parade of blingy degenerates for the underbelly of Connecticut's $59-a-night motels room and the dealers, hookers, and hard-core addicts—like me—who favored them."

“I hardly went anywhere now, except to buy. It was me and a crack pipe in a Super 8, not knowing which the f**k way was up," Hunter Biden wrote. "All my energy revolved around smoking drugs and making arrangements to buy drugs—feeding the beast."

The prosecution has also filed a motion to admit soundbites from Hunter Biden's audiobook, in which he narrated his memoir.

Hunter Biden Beautiful Thin... by mia.cathell

The Laptop

Exhibit 2 is a log of Hunter Biden's messages detailing his crack-chasing chronicles.

Prosecutors say the underlying material is voluminous. In total, there are 18,130 pages of data summarized in the chart.

The messages, which an FBI forensics specialist extracted from Hunter Biden's infamous "laptop from hell," delve into some of his sordid escapades in the days following the handgun's purchase when it was still in his possession prior to its dumping.

On the night of October 13, 2018, Hunter Biden texted that he was on Maryland Avenue lurking behind the stadium of the Wilmington Blue Rocks, a Minor League Baseball team, waiting for a drug dealer named "Mookie." The next day, Hunter Biden messaged that he was "sleeping on a car smoking crack on 4th Street and Rodney," an intersection in downtown Wilmington.

"What's the worst place for me to be trying to stay clean? Delaware," Hunter Biden texted on November 21, 2018.

The prosecution also pulled videos and photographs of Hunter Biden smoking crack that were backed up to his Apple iCloud account, uploaded to his laptop, or sent over text. Among the incriminating files, Hunter Biden took a picture of himself with a crack pipe in his hand, and he snapped a full-naked mirror selfie with a bong in the background. (Thankfully, they're censored.)

One of the screenshots looks like it's from the viral video of Hunter Biden weighing crack with a gram scale and debating the amount without the plastic baggie. A glimpse of his cigarette-stuffed face is briefly visible at the beginning of the 18-second clip.

Presently, the prosecution opted not to include relevant texts with "certain family members" in the chatlogs, but the prosecutors indicated they'll do so if the defense advances the argument that Hunter Biden did not know he was in such a "prohibited status."

Hunter Biden Laptop Messages by mia.cathell

The Witnesses

A trio of Hunter Biden's exes will be called on to testify against him.

Although they're not named explicitly, based on the identifying information that the prosecution provided, "Witness 1," "Witness 2," and "Witness 3" are presumably Hunter Biden's ex-wife, Kathleen Buhle; his baby mama, Lunden Roberts, with whom he fathered five-year-old Navy Joan Roberts; and the widow of Hunter Biden's brother, Hallie Biden, with whom he had an affair.

Roberts successfully sued Hunter Biden, who had denied paternity, for being a deadbeat dad, forcing him to pay child support. Navy, the seventh grandchild of President Biden, has been repeatedly snubbed by both Hunter Biden and the entire Biden family.

Roberts will testify that she observed Hunter Biden "using crack cocaine frequently—every 20 minutes except when he slept."

Hallie Biden had discarded the gun, tossing it into the trash can outside of the local Janssen Market. Authorities eventually recovered the revolver from the Wilmington grocery's dumpster after a man who was collecting recyclables made the discovery.

Upon realizing Hallie Biden had confiscated the firearm, which was concealed in his car, on October 23, 2018, Hunter Biden messaged: "Did you take that from me [redacted]? Are you insane. Tell me now. This is no game..." After talking to police, an irate Hunter Biden texted: "The f**king FBI [redacted]. It's hard to believe anyone is that stupid // so what's my fault here Hallie that you speak of. Owning a gun that's in a locked car hidden on another property? You say I invade your privacy. What more can I do than come back to you to try again. And you do this???? Who in their right mind would trust you would help me get sober?"

Over the course of the couple's fling, when Hunter Biden stayed at her home in the fall of 2018, Hallie Biden told prosecutions that she and her children searched his bags, backpacks, and car, discovering drugs in his possession on multiple occasions.

Days before Hallie Biden's anticipated testimony, President Biden reportedly visited his daughter-in-law near the ninth anniversary of Beau Biden's death, and Hunter Biden was recently photographed aboard Air Force One ahead of trial.

Buhle, who was previously married to Hunter Biden and divorced him in April 2017, said she'd routinely check his vehicle out of concern that their children could be in a car containing drugs. While searching, Buhle said she occasionally found drugs or drug-related paraphernalia inside, which was corroborated by a March 9, 2018, text exchange with Hunter Biden, per prosecutors.

"I also found a few crack pipes. I took them out because our daughter was driving the car," Buhle allegedly told him.

The prosecution also intends to call on U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) supervisory special agent Joshua Romig, who will decode "coded" terminology and "drug language" Hunter Biden used over text, such as "baby powder," "Party Favor," "10grams," "I need more chore boy," "one full," "fentan," and "a ball." Dr. Jason Brewer, a chemist, will also serve as an expert witness testifying that traces of cocaine appeared on a brown leather pouch that was discovered next to the discarded handgun.

An employee with the StarQuest Shooters and Survival Supply, where the sale transpired, will testify that on October 12, 2018, Hunter Biden entered the gun shop, surveyed its inventory, and purchased the $749.95 Colt Cobra, an HKS Speedloader, and 25 rounds of Hornady "American Gunner" ammunition for the revolver. According to a copy of the completed background check, Hunter Biden answered "No" to the question of whether he was an unlawful user of or addicted to depressants, stimulants, narcotics, or any other controlled substances ("Question 11.e"). He, then, certified that his answers were true and correct, affirming he understood that making a false written statement on the paperwork was a crime punishable under federal law.

Hunter Biden ATF Form 4473 by mia.cathell

The Defense

Despite his memoir being replete with confessions, Hunter Biden's counsel is primarily relying on this line of defense: he didn't understand what the terms "unlawful user" and "addict" meant at the time he filled out the firearms form, signed, and dated it.

"[T]he issue here is Mr. Biden's understanding of the question [...] The terms 'user' or 'addict' are not defined on the form and were not explained to him. Someone, like Mr. Biden who had just completed an 11-day rehabilitation program and lived with a sober companion after that, could surely believe he was not a present tense user or addict," the defense disputed the trial brief.

So, it all comes down to whether he "knowingly" lied, the defense insists—still disputing what definitions jurors will work with.

In a court filing Wednesday, the defense submitted arguments asking for additional revisions to the jury instructions, asserting that Hunter Biden's understanding of the wording determines whether he "knowingly" believed he was either one: "A person acts 'knowingly' if that person acts voluntarily and intentionally and not because of mistake or accident or other innocent reason."

"Words sometimes are understood to have different meanings to different people..." Hunter Biden's lawyers wrote, raising a "good faith" defense that he acted honestly, even if he was mistaken or misunderstood the question. "It does not matter whether you or Congress or anyone else would define the defendant as an 'addict' or 'user of controlled substances,' if Mr. Biden did not understand that he was an 'addict' or 'user' [...] he did not knowingly break the law then either and he must be found not guilty."

The defense has a handful of witnesses: Dr. Joshua Lee, a clinician-researcher focused on addiction pharmacotherapies in "criminal justice populations," who will opine on Hunter Biden's "state of denial" about his addiction; Dr. Michael Coyer, a toxicology expert, who will likely dispute Brewer's forensic findings relating to the identification of cocaine found on Hunter Biden's brown-colored pouch; and Dr. Khody Detwiler, who will analyze Hunter Biden's handwriting on the ATF Form 4473.

Dr. Elie Aoun may step in for Lee "in light of a new scheduling conflict" with the latter to talk about how addicts view themselves.

The prosecution rejected the defense's witnesses testifying on Hunter Biden's behalf, saying he should speak for himself: "If the defendant wants the jury to know what he thought about his own addiction or drug use, he has to take the stand and testify or introduce other admissible evidence that reflects his state of mind at the time. He cannot hire an expert to do it for him."

As for the prosecution's trial exhibits, the defense had unsuccessfully sought to outright bar Hunter Biden's laptop from being entered into evidence, claiming that it had been hacked by bad-faith actors beforehand and seeded with false information.

"The defendant's laptop is real [...] and it contains significant evidence of the defendant's guilt," Weiss wrote in response to the opposition filing, citing sources that corroborate the laptop's legitimacy and saying questioning its authenticity is conspiratorial.

The defense argued that "the data had been altered and compromised before investigators obtained the electronic material."

Hunter Biden had dropped off his MacBook Pro at a Delaware computer repair place—The Mac Shop owned by John Paul Mac Isaac—in April 2019 and never reclaimed it. Later that year, Mac Isaac handed the hard drive over to the FBI in December 2019.

"What are the messages the defendant is claiming were somehow retroactively planted into his non-functional laptop, and what is the evidence of that? There is none. He has not shown any of the actual evidence in this case is unreliable or inauthentic..." Weiss rebutted. "Instead, the defendant's theory about the laptop is a conspiracy theory with no supporting evidence."

Hunter Biden's defense counsel also repeated the Russian disinformation claim that a Russian businessman had alleged that his devices were compromised by FSB assets (Russia's Federal Security Service) during a trip he took to Kazakhstan in 2014.

Weiss, a Trump-nominated prosecutor retained by the Biden administration, asked the judge presiding over the proceedings to prohibit Hunter Biden from suggesting that the electronic evidence is fabricated or fake. U.S. District Court Judge Maryellen Noreika, a Trump appointee, ordered at the May 24 pre-trial conference that jurors can be shown the laptop as proof of Hunter Biden's drug use, but the defense may challenge each piece of evidence extracted from the device on an item-by-item basis.

Noreika sometimes sided with the defense. The prosecution is partly prohibited from bringing up Hunter Biden's "extravagant lifestyle" at trial, such as his spending spree on high-end escort services, but discussing his splurging on drugs is permissible.

"Any reference to this issue [...] would be prejudicial beyond any probative value and pose a danger of [...] misleading the jury," argued Hunter Biden's high-profile lawyer, Abbe Lowell, who represented Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ) in his corruption case.

The prosecution also cannot reference Hunter Biden's child-support proceedings in Arkansas, discuss his discharge from the U.S. Navy Reserve after failing a cocaine test in 2014, or talk about his separate California tax evasion case in front of the jury.

Last week, Noreika swatted down Hunter Biden's eleventh-hour bid, one of many, to stop the gun case from heading to trial, calling it "frivolous" and finding "no reason to believe" that the attempt would be "any more meritorious than his prior efforts."

Hunter Biden's motion to enjoin the special counsel's investigation and prosecution of him "from now into the future" claimed that the use of congressional appropriations to fund Weiss was unconstitutional because the prosecutor is not "independent counsel."

"Somewhat incongruously, [Biden] has asserted in this case both that he is being selectively prosecuted by a Special Counsel 'making prosecutorial decisions for political reasons,' and that the Special Counsel making those decisions is not actually independent from the Attorney General appointed by his father or the Executive Branch headed by his father," Noreika ruled.