The fate of Hunter Biden is now in the hands of 12 jurors, who began deliberations in his Delaware gun trial Monday afternoon.
If convicted on all counts, Hunter faces up to 25 years in prison and $750,000 of fines, court filings say.
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The government charged Hunter with one count of false statement in the purchase of a firearm, one count of possession of a firearm by a person who is an unlawful user of or addicted to a controlled substance, and one count of false statement related to information required to be kept by a federal firearms licensed dealer.
Hunter used crack when he purchased the firearm, according to a wide variety of photos from the time on his abandoned laptop, and the gun was found discarded in a public trash can next to a school. The Secret Service allegedly intervened in the investigation of that incident.
Before the judge excused the jury to deliberate, the government argued Hunter was an unlawful user of controlled substances and knew of his addiction. Wise pointed to the specific evidence that suggested Hunter used drugs during October 2018. The evidence included Hunter’s own messages and memoir.
“The evidence was personal, it was ugly, it was overwhelming,” Prosecutor Leo Wise stated, according to court reporters. “It was also absolutely necessary.”
“No one is above the law,” he said, restating a theme of the prosecution.
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“All of this is not evidence,” he gestured around the courtroom at the Biden family watching the proceedings. “People sitting in the gallery are not evidence.”
Wise also displayed a calendar to the jury to show the timeline of the evidence. He also showed a PowerPoint presentation with headlines that read, “drug messages,” “addiction messages,” “drug paraphernalia,” and “cash withdrawals.”
The defense team’s closing arguments tried to frame Hunter as a victim of drug addiction, as it did in opening statements.
Attorney Abbe Lowell raised doubt as to whether or not Hunter “knowingly” committed wrongdoing and argued that Hunter admitting he was an addict in his book published in 2021 does not mean he knew he was an addict in 2018.
“With this very high burden, it’s time to end this case,” Lowell said, according to court reporters. Reasonable doubt “is not suspicion or conjecture.”
Lowell’s closing argument went about 85 minutes.Read more about the case here.
The case is United States v. Hunter Biden, No. 24-1703 in the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.
Wendell Husebo is a political reporter with Breitbart News and a former GOP War Room Analyst. He is the author of Politics of Slave Morality. Follow Wendell on “X” @WendellHusebø or on Truth Social @WendellHusebo.
