Hunter Biden, son of U.S. President Joe Biden, and his wife, Melissa Cohen Biden, arrive at the federal court for his trial on criminal gun charges in Wilmington, Delaware, on June 7, 2024.
Hannah Beier | Reuters
Prosecutors rested their case Friday in the federal gun trial of President Joe Biden’s son Hunter Biden.
Defense attorneys for Hunter Biden are now set to lay out their case, which is expected to wrap up next week in U.S. District Court in Delaware. It is unclear if they plan to call their client to testify in his own defense.
Hunter Biden, 54, is charged with three counts related to his purchase and possession of a Colt Cobra revolver while using illicit drugs.
Prosecutors said the evidence is “overwhelming” that Hunter was addicted to crack cocaine at the time he bought the gun, and that he lied about it on a form used in a federal background check to purchase the gun.
Jurors on Thursday heard testimony from Hallie Biden, the widow of Hunter’s late brother, Beau Biden.
In 2018, Hallie Biden discovered and disposed of the gun at the heart of the case.
She also had a romantic relationship with Hunter Biden after Beau Biden died of cancer in 2015. She learned while dating Hunter that he was using crack cocaine, and told the jury that she found out and then “Googled it because I didn’t know what it was.”
She testified that she found the revolver in Hunter’s truck on Oct. 23, 2018, and threw it out behind a grocery store.
“I didn’t want him to hurt himself, or my kids to find it and hurt themselves,” she told the jury.
The president said in an ABC News interview Thursday that he will not pardon his son if he is convicted, and that he will accept whatever verdict the jury delivers.
The trial of the incumbent president’s sole surviving son began just days after former President Donald Trump was convicted on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records.
Trump has baselessly claimed that case, which was brought by the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office and tried in New York state court, was masterminded by Biden to hurt Trump’s chances in the 2024 presidential election.
The presumptive Republican nominee and his allies have continued to spread and fundraise off that claim, even as Biden’s own son faces prosecution by the federal Department of Justice in two separate courts.
This is developing news. Please check back for updates.