Hunter Biden’s gun trial enters its final stretch after testimony about his drug use

He criminal trial of the president’s son Joe Biden enters his home stretch Monday as the defense attempts to undermine prosecutors’ case, laying bare some of the darkest moments in Hunter Biden’s drug-scarred past.

Hunter Biden’s Lawyers Could Call at least one more witness when the case resumes in Delaware federal court, the first of two trials he faces amid his father’s re-election campaign. It is unclear whether prosecutors will call witnesses before the case moves to closing arguments and then to the jury.

Hunter Biden is charged with three felonies stemming from the October 2018 purchase of a gun he owned for about 11 days. Prosecutors say he lied on a mandatory gun purchase form by saying he was not an illegal drug user or addict.

Hunter Biden has pleaded not guilty and accused the Justice Department of bowing to political pressure from former President Donald Trump and other Republicans to bring the case and separate charges after a deal with prosecutors collapsed last year. Hunter Biden has said he has been sober since 2019, but his attorneys have said he did not consider himself an “addict” when he filled out the form.

The case has highlighted a turbulent time in Hunter Biden’s life following the death of his brother Beau in 2015. First Lady Jill Biden has watched from the front row of the courtroom as the trial unfolds.

President Biden was in France much of last week and heads to Europe again this week for the Group of Seven leaders meeting in Italy.

Hunter Biden’s struggles with substance addiction more than five years ago are well documented. But defense attorneys argue there is no evidence that Hunter Biden was actually using drugs in the 11 days he was in possession of the gun.

He had completed a rehabilitation program weeks earlier.

Jurors have heard emotional and vulgar testimony from former romantic partners of Hunter Biden and read personal text messages. They’ve seen photos of Hunter Biden holding a crack pipe and partially clothed, and phone videos of him weighing cocaine on a scale.

His ex-wife and two ex-girlfriends testified to prosecutors about his habitual crack use and her failed efforts to help him detox. One woman, who met Hunter Biden in 2017 at a strip club where she worked, described him smoking crack cocaine every 20 minutes or so while she stayed with him in a hotel.

Hunter Biden has not taken the stand and it is unclear if he will. But the jury heard him describe in detail his descent into addiction through audio excerpts played in court from his 2021 memoir “Beautiful Things.”

The book, written after he was teetotal, covers the period in which he had the gun, but does not mention it specifically.

A key witness for prosecutors is Beau’s widow, Hallie, who had a brief troubled relationship with Hunter after her brother died of brain cancer. She found the unloaded gun in Hunter’s truck on Oct. 23, 2018, panicked, and threw it into a trash can at a grocery store in Wilmington, where a man inadvertently removed it from the trash.

“I didn’t want him to get hurt and I didn’t want my kids to find out and get hurt,” Hallie Biden told the jury.

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