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LIVE: Day 2 of Hunter Biden's Gun Trial

Mia Cathell
Mia Cathell  |  June 04, 2024 8:15 AM

This is a live post — updates will be posted below.

WILMINGTON, Delaware — Yesterday, a 12-person jury was swiftly selected in the gun trial of Hunter Biden. Behind him sat First Lady Jill Biden in a show of solidarity. Seated next to her was Hunter's current wife, Melissa Cohen, and his half-sister, Ashley Biden, making the criminal proceedings feel like family court. An assembly of Secret Service agents surrounded the Biden family.

Of the jury pool, many knew the Bidens in some way. It was like six degrees of separation: Delaware edition.

One potential juror said he used to play squash with Beau Biden, Hunter's late brother, and competed in at least one tournament together. But because he knew the Biden family "fairly well" and felt he couldn't be impartial, that juror was dismissed. The squash player also said his children played baseball with Beau's kids.

Another prospective juror worked at the same school as Jill Biden and met her husband. However, he was allowed to remain.

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One woman was a bartender at the Two Stones Pub in Kinnett Square where she "on and off" served Hunter's uncle John T. Owens, the brother-in-law of President Joe Biden. She was permitted to stay in the pool until the peremptory striking period.

Another woman said she is an acquaintance of Hallie Biden, Beau Biden's widow, with whom Hunter had an affair, and knew Beau personally. "Beau was a friend of the family. We miss him," she said. She also said that her husband "socializes" with the Bidens and that both belong to the same social clubs. She was stricken for cause.

In another episode of Keeping Up With The Bidens, a juror said that her father-in-law is an air-traffic controller at Dover Air Force Base, so he sometimes coordinates with Secret Service. "You know when he [President Biden] is coming in," she said.

Apparently, in Delaware, whether you've ever bumped into Biden is a test of whether you're a tried-and-true resident worthy of calling yourself a Delawarean.

According to the musings of Delaware Online, there's a saying in some circles around Delaware, which points out the ubiquitousness of the president across his home state: "If you haven't met Joe Biden, you're not really a Delawarean."

Well, it is President Biden's stomping grounds, after all. Wilmington's train station is named after him. A picture of the president is hanging in the lobby of the federal courthouse. The city's visitors bureau tells tourists to "Explore Joe Biden's Wilmington."

As for the political leanings of the jury pool, one woman said she primarily watches CNN and MSNBC, donated to Hillary Clinton, and even volunteered on her 2008 Kentucky presidential primary campaign (when she canvassed the streets for Clinton). Asked if she'd able to find the son of the sitting Democratic president guilty, she said, "I don't see any relation." The judge kept her, though she was ultimately not picked.

Another woman was sent home after she mentioned reading reports about Hunter. Asked what opinion she's formed, if any, she said, "Not a good one."

One man, who mentioned politically motivated prosecutions, specifically referencing President Donald Trump's hush money trial, was excused. "It seems like politics is playing a big role in who gets charged with what and when," he said.

Similarly, a woman was let go because she suggested this was a political prosecution — but of Hunter Biden. The juror, who joined a 2016 "resistance" group in response to Trump's win and donated to a number of Democrats in the 2022 midterms, said she believes Hunter is being prosecuted because of who his famous father is. "I think it's a very strong factor," she said. "Other people might've done similar things but not had it brought to the same level of scrutiny."

One man said he heard about the case on Newsmax and Fox News, but was not sure he could give Hunter "a fair shake."

A Trump donor, who contributed to his 2016 campaign, was qualified, but didn't make the jury.

However, a black woman who donated to President Barack Obama's campaign was approved to stay despite Biden being Obama's vice president. She was chosen as one of the four alternates.

The parties settled on an even six women and six men to make up the jury, the majority of whom are black.

NAACP Delaware's leader, Richard Smith, was also in attendance and embraced Hunter as he exited the courtroom. "I told him we support him and I told him the black community is with him," Smith reportedly said afterwards. "We understand what he is going through. And said we love each other."

Today, the newly seated jury will hear opening arguments followed by the first witness for the prosecution: the FBI agent in charge of investigating the case, who's expected to introduce digital evidence extracted from Hunter's infamous laptop.

LIVE UPDATES

8:35 a.m. — Hunter Biden has arrived at the federal courthouse in Wilmington.

8:55 a.m. — the judge enters the courtroom and announces, "So, we lost a juror." One juror was dismissed after sending an email Monday night saying that she is unemployed and lives an hour away from the courthouse. She supposedly did not realize she had to be at court every day of the trial.

The defense is disputing the admissibility of some of the prosecution's pictures taken from Hunter's iCloud account. One shows Hunter sleeping. Another is a photograph of Hunter's back tattoo of the Finger Lakes.

Prosecutors say they're relevant to corroborate Hunter's location at certain times, as a witness will testify. One of the photo's geolocation data pinpoints him reveling in Malibu. "Why should I care he's in Malibu?" Judge Maryellen Noreika asks. The prosecution says Hunter relapsed again in California. 

Noreika rules that just because one of the pictures captures an unclothed Hunter, he is only visible from the chest up, so she cannot exclude the evidence on that basis. 

9:05 a.m. — we are still waiting on some straggling jurors to arrive. Jill Biden is here again, serving as President Biden's familial proxy as he prioritizes his re-election campaign. 

9:56 a.m. — opening statements have begun. "No one is above the law," states the prosecutor. As an aside, it's worth remembering the prosecution tried to push through a sweetheart plea deal for Hunter before the judge refused to be a "rubber stamp," necessitating the trial. 

Pictures of the prosecution's trial exhibits flash on a projection screen in the courtroom: the Colt Cobra revolver and a Speedloader — an accessory that allows rapid reloading of a firearm — along with 25 rounds of ammunition for the .38 Special revolver. All were items purchased by Hunter at StarQuest Shooters and Survival Supply on October 12, 2018, after attesting he was not doing or addicted to drugs on the screening form. 

Prosecutors are laying out the bare bones of the case they've built against Hunter, recounting the timeline of events leading up to the firearm being dumped at Janssen's Market, a grocery store. Heralding a mountain of evidence against Hunter, including his own admissions published in his memoir Beautiful Things, where Hunter self-identified as a crack addict who's "smoking every fifteen minutes, seven days a week."

The prosecution plays a snippet of Hunter's audiobook. The jury hears Hunter narrating the opening to Chapter 10: "My penultimate odyssey through full-blown addiction became a shabbier, gloomier, more solitary version of the chromatic tear I went on through Southern California...I had returned that fall, after my most recent relapse in California, with the hope of getting clean through a new therapy and reconciling with Hallie. Neither happened."

The projector now shows a photograph of Hunter's leather-brown pouch, which was found with the discarded gun. Dr. Jason Brewer, a forensic chemist, will testify that the white powdery residue found on Hunter's brown-colored pouch is crack cocaine. 

10:23 a.m. — the defense is up for opening remarks. The projector now shows jurors an October 2018 calendar that marks the 11-day period that the prosecution alleges Hunter illegally possessed the firearm in question. 

Hunter's defense attorney Abbe Lowell, who previously represented Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ) in his previous federal corruption case, advances the good-faith argument that Hunter did not "knowingly" lie on the federal ATF 4473 form. Lowell says the prosecution purposefully left out that the form asks if an individual is an addict or user, not whether they "have ever been." The intent to deceive is a "very high" bar to prove, Hunter's lawyer added. 

Seeking a pathos appeal, Lowell tries to tug on the jury's heartstrings by recounting Hunter's childhood from the personal loss he experienced to the death of his older brother Beau. Hunter, in Lowell's version of events, used alcohol and drugs to "dull his pain."

Lowell continues, saying drug addicts are often in deep states of denial about their addiction and Hunter did achieve sobriety at some points, even if they were fleeting. Lowell also tells the jury that Hunter's poison of choice is alcohol, not drugs, and alcohol abuse is not something the form forbids.

Hunter's lawyer references Hunter's uncle Jimmy Biden, who will testify that the first son sought to detox at "The View," a luxury rehab center in California in the summer of 2018. 

"There's no such thing as a high-functioning crack addict," Lowell tells the jury. He continues by recounting Hunter's side of the story from the day Hunter purchased the firearm and ammunition. Lowell says Hunter would not have known what a Speedloader was, suggesting he was under the persuasion of sale-hungry firearm dealers. One of the associates considers himself a "whale hunter," a salesman who could "bring in the big one," Lowell alleges. "A sale is a sale," Lowell adds, "and that was their motive."

As to Hunter's intentions that day, Lowell questions why someone inexperienced like Hunter would load up on all those items unless prodded to do so.

Lowell tells the jury that Hunter's firearm never came out of its lockbox until October 22, 2018, 10 days later. It was stored in Hunter's Ford Raptor within the truck's center console. Investigators didn't test Hunter's leather pouch for fingerprints, Lowell tells the jury. The evidence remained sealed away in a Delaware State Police vault for five years until 2023.

Seeking to introduce doubt, Lowell asserts that anyone could have tampered with the evidence, and someone could have put the powder there. He goes on to question whether the pouch was even Hunter's property. 

The indictment against Hunter is not evidence, Lowell says to the jury. It's simply an accusation of crimes. The burden of proof is on the prosecutors, and they must prove the allegations beyond a reasonable doubt, he reminds.

11:12 a.m. — following opening arguments, the court begins its morning break.

11:25 a.m. — the prosecution calls its first witness: FBI Special Agent Erika Jensen, who brings up Hunter's bank statements as documentation of his cash withdrawals, specifically when he took out cash around the time of his spring 2018 bender in California. Hunter chronicled this in his memoir with Chapter 9: "California Odyssey."

11:50 a.m. — the audio feed into the overflow room cuts out for a bit right as Jensen mentions Hunter being on the board of Ukrainian energy company Burisma.

11:55 a.m. — audio is back. The prosecution proceeds to play portions of Hunter's narration of Chapter 7, titled "Cracked," in which he talks about his crack bong being "an answer" to help him feel good, although it was "not the answer."

Another excerpt of Hunter's audiobook — Chapter 8: "Into the Desert" — played for the jury has Hunter calling his ability to easily find crack anytime, anywhere "no matter the terrain" his "superpower." Occasionally, Hunter looks up at the screen showing highlighted excerpts from his book as his own voice and memoir are used against him. At one point, Hunter leans back and places his hand over his mouth in something of a thinking pose. 

12:50 p.m. — after prosecutors played the jury multiple clips of Hunter's voice reading the damning admissions in his memoir, the court is now taking a break for lunch.  

1:53 p.m. — back from lunch. Hunter and his wife, Melissa Cohen Biden, embrace, hold each other's faces, kiss, and whisper to each other. 

1:55 p.m. — the judge orders a five-minute sidebar with both parties.

2:05 p.m. — the prosecution enters a hard drive — containing files from Hunter's iCloud account — into evidence. Apple handed the data over to prosecutors after being served a search warrant. 

2:10 p.m. — the prosecution is now presenting the infamous "laptop from hell" that Hunter left at a computer repair shop owned by John Paul Mac Isaac. The FBI's Special Agent Jensen explains that investigators combed through Hunter's iMessages, photos, and videos to find evidence of his addiction. 

Jensen says the material produced more than 18,000 pages worth of data which investigators summarized in a sprawling chart spanning nearly 300 rows. Going text message by text message, Jensen reads Hunter's messages in the courtroom. She highlights an April 2018 exchange Hunter had with a WhatsApp account named "Clifford O'Brien." Hunter sent a picture of crack weighted on a gram scale and arranged for drug pickups with this apparent drug connection.

2:40 p.m. — the prosecution addresses the defense's claim that Hunter sobered up successfully at "The View". Hunter's invoices show his payments for services, including a bill for a "sober companion." The prosecution plays Hunter's audiobook admission that he never "stayed sober" as planned. 

2:50 p.m. — Jensen explains a log of Hunter's ATM transactions through September 2018, including withdrawals as large as $14,000. Some money was pulled from Owasco, LLC, and Owasco, PC, one of Hunter's companies with business accounts he could access. 

3:00 p.m. — now the prosecution presents a copy of Hunter's complete background check form, honing in on how he answered question 11.e regarding drug use and/or addiction by checking the "No" box.

The prosecution also presents a scanned copy of Hunter's passport, which he used to verify his identity, and the receipt from the firearm sale. 

3:08 p.m. — the court is now beginning its afternoon break.

3:25 p.m. — The prosecution continues questioning Special Agent Jensen of the FBI about Hunter's texts.

We've skipped ahead to when Hallie ditched the gun. "Did you take that from me [redacted]? Are you insane. Tell me now. This is no game. And you're being totally irresponsible and unhinged," Hunter texted Hallie on October 23, 2018. After talking to police, an irate Hunter Biden messaged "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? [...] Who in their right mind would trust you would help me get sober?"

In another argument over text, on November 21, 2018, Hunter texted: "You tell all these girls you introduce to me that I'm a crack head looser [sic]. WTF [redacted] I'm a f**king better man than any man you know whether I'm smoking crack or not." He received a text in response that said: "That's all very true except the part where you said I tell all these girls you're a crackhead loser...I've never called you a Loser. I obviously have to heads up on the crack but in no way are you a loser."

The prosecution shows January 2019 pictures Hunter took of himself, including one where he's holding a crack pipe and another where a bong can be seen in the background. Hunter's naked backside is censored in the mirror selfie.

4:00 p.m. The defense cross-examines Jensen.

Lowell questions why pictures and texts dated after the gun sale were shown.

Lowell says Jensen wasn't there to witness any of the events that occurred, and the memoir was written in hand sight, not contemporaneously. He then probes about the four-year period (2015 to 2019) Hunter said he was "actively addicted." Jensen clarifies that there were periods over that timeframe when he was in the throes of addiction. "That means periods of time when he was not," Lowel counters.

4:23 p.m. Cross-examination is paused until tomorrow.