Federal prosecutors say US President Biden’s son was in the throes of a heavy crack addiction when he bought the gun.
Hunter Biden’s widowed sister-in-law has testified that she found his gun and threw it away out of fear of his spiralling drug addiction, potentially bolstering prosecutors’ case that President Joe Biden’s son broke a law barring illegal drug users from owning firearms.
Hallie Biden told jurors about the moment she found the revolver in his truck, describing how she put it into a leather pouch, stuffed it into a shopping bag and tossed it in a rubbish bin outside a market near her home.
“I panicked, and I wanted to get rid of them,” she testified about finding the gun and ammunition in the vehicle’s console in October 2018. “I didn’t want him to hurt himself, and I didn’t want my kids to find it and hurt themselves.”
The purchase of the Colt revolver by Hunter Biden – and Hallie Biden’s frenzied disposal of it – are central to the case against him. Federal prosecutors say the president’s son was in the throes of a heavy crack addiction when he bought the gun.
He 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 keeping the gun for 11 days.
Hunter Biden, who has pleaded not guilty, has said the Justice Department is bending to political pressure from Republicans and that he is being unfairly targeted.
Meanwhile, President Joe Biden said in an interview with ABC that he would accept the jury’s verdict and ruled out a pardon for his son. Hunter Biden is the first child of a United States president to face a criminal trial.
The Delaware jury has heard testimony this week from witnesses including his ex-wife and a former girlfriend about the 54-year-old’s past prolific drug use, which he has publicly acknowledged.
Prosecutors did not wrap up their case on Thursday and said they planned to call two more witnesses on Friday. Hunter Biden’s lawyer said he could finish his case by the end of Monday.
Hunter Biden gun charges
Hallie Biden, who had a brief romantic relationship with Hunter after Beau Biden died in 2015, testified that from the time Hunter returned to Delaware from a 2018 trip to California until she…