Joe Biden’s son do not His lawyers have reportedly said he will testify in his own defense at his trial on federal firearms charges. Shown on monday.
The development comes as Hunter Biden’s trial heads toward the final stages, with closing arguments and a possible jury verdict set to begin on Monday, as the defense tries to chip away at the prosecution’s case by revealing some of the darkest moments of his client’s drug-addled past.
Hunter Biden’s trial, underway in federal court in Delaware, is the first of two he faces in the midst of his father’s reelection campaign.
Hunter Biden is charged with three felony counts stemming from purchasing a gun in October 2018 and possessing it for about 11 days. Prosecutors say he lied on a mandatory gun purchase application about not using illegal drugs or having an addiction.
Hunter Biden has maintained his innocence and accused the Justice Department of bowing to political pressure from Donald Trump and other Republicans to file this case and a separate tax prosecution after a deal with prosecutors collapsed last year. Hunter Biden has said he has not drunk alcohol since 2019, but his lawyers have said he did not consider himself an “addict” when he filled out the application.
The case has drawn attention to a tumultuous period in Hunter Biden’s life following the death of his brother Beau in 2015. First lady Jill Biden has been watching the case unfold from the front row in the courtroom. Joe Biden spent much of last week in France and is heading back to Europe this week to attend the G7 summit in Italy.
Hunter Biden famously struggled with drug addiction before kicking the habit more than five years ago, but defense lawyers argue there’s no evidence he was actually using drugs during the 11 days he possessed the gun. He had finished a rehab program just weeks earlier.
Jurors heard emotional and salacious testimony from Hunter Biden’s former girlfriends and read private text messages. They saw photos of Hunter Biden holding a crack pipe and partially naked, as well as footage of him weighing out crack cocaine on a scale from his cellphone.
Hunter Biden has not taken the stand as a witness, and it is unclear whether he will, but jurors did hear him recount his descent into drug addiction in audio excerpts played in court from his 2021 memoir, “Beautiful Things.” The book, written after Biden got sober, mentions times when he owned a gun but does not specify them.
Joe Biden said last week he would accept the jury’s verdict and announced he would not grant a pardon for his son. Jill Biden was in court every day last week in support of Hunter, except for Thursday, when she was in France with the president for a Normandy Senator Day event.
Hunter Biden appeared to have avoided prosecution on the gun case altogether, but a deal he reached with prosecutors last summer fell apart after U.S. District Judge Maryellen Noreika, a Republican nominee of Donald Trump, expressed concerns. Hunter Biden also faces a September trial on felony charges for failing to pay at least $1.4 million in taxes over four years.
If convicted on the firearms charges, Hunter Biden faces up to 25 years in prison, but that’s nowhere near the maximum sentence for a first-time offender, and it’s unclear whether a judge will give him any time in prison.
