(7 Jun 2024)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Wilmington, Delaware – 7 June 2024
1. Various of Naomi Biden entering the courthouse with her husband
2. Various of James Biden with others entering the courthouse
STORYLINE:
Hunter Biden’s daughter Naomi was called as a defense witness Friday in his federal gun trial, testifying about how she visited her father in a rehab facility in 2018 and told him she was proud of him.
“I hadn’t seen my dad in a long time, and I knew he was in a rehab facility there. He reached out,” she told jurors softly.
Naomi said she and her boyfriend, who is now her husband, met Hunter and his “sober coach” at a coffee shop.
The pair were seen entering the courthouse together on Friday. President Joe Biden’s brother, James, also attending Friday’s session in Wilmington. The defense has also made James one of their witnesses.
The defense began putting on its case shortly after federal prosecutors finished with their witnesses. The week’s proceedings have been largely dedicated to highlighting the seriousness of his drug problem through highly personal testimony, all in an effort by prosecutors to prove that the president’s son lied on a mandatory gun-purchase form when he said he was not illegally using or addicted to drugs.
In October 2018, the month Hunter Biden bought the gun, Naomi traveled from Washington to New York in her father’s truck to move her boyfriend’s belongings. Hunter drove Joe Biden’s Cadillac to New York later that month to retrieve his truck, leaving the Cadillac with Naomi. She told jurors she didn’t see any drug paraphernalia or evidence of drug use.
“He seemed great. He seemed hopeful,” she said.
Jurors heard earlier in the week from Hunter Biden’s his ex-wife and a former girlfriend who testified about his habitual crack use and their failed efforts to help him get clean. They saw images of the president’s son bare-chested and disheveled in a filthy room, and half-naked holding crack pipes. And they watched video of his crack cocaine weighed on a scale.
Prosecutors say the evidence is necessary to prove that Hunter, 54, was in the throes of addiction when he bought the gun and therefore lied when he checked “no” on the form that asked whether he was “an unlawful user of, or addicted to” drugs.
Lowell has argued Hunter did not think of himself as an “addict” when he bought the gun and did not intend to deceive anyone.
Meanwhile, President Joe Biden worked to walk the line between president and father, telling ABC in an interview that he would accept the jury’s verdict and ruling out a pardon for his son. Earlier this week, he issued a statement saying: “I am the President, but I am also a Dad. Jill and I love our son, and we are so proud of the man he is today."
Biden is in France this week for D-Day anniversary events. First lady Jill Biden, who attended court most of the week, flew back from France on Thursday to be at the trial again Friday. She will return to France for a state dinner.
Hunter Biden has been charged with three felonies: lying to a federally licensed gun dealer, making a false claim on the application by saying he was not a drug user and illegally having the gun for 11 days.
He has pleaded not guilty. He had hoped to resolve the gun case and another separate tax case in California with a plea deal last year, the result of a yearslong investigation into his business dealings.
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