Hunter Biden's Lawyers Rest Their Case in Federal Gun Trial Without His Testimony - 2024-06-11

The trial for Hunter Biden 's felony gun charges resumes today with the defense's team. Hunter Biden is charged with three felonies stemming from the October 2018 purchase of a gun he had for about 11 days. The case has put a spotlight on a turbulent time in Hunter Biden 's life after the death of his brother, Beau , in 2015. Hunter Biden 's struggles with addiction before getting sober more than five years ago are well documented. Jurors have heard emotional testimony from Hunter Biden 's former romantic partners and read personal text messages. They've seen photos of him holding a crack pipe and partly clothed, and video from his phone of crack cocaine weighed on a scale. His ex-wife and two former girlfriends testified for prosecutors about his habitual crack use and their failed efforts to help him get clean. One woman, who met Hunter Biden in 2017 at a strip club where she worked, described him smoking crack every 20 minutes or so while she stayed with him at a hotel. Jurors have heard him describe at length his descent into addiction through audio excerpts played in court of his 2021 memoir, ' Beau tiful Things.' The book, written after he got sober, covers the period he had the gun but doesn't mention it specifically. A key witness for prosecutors is Beau 's widow, Hallie , who had a brief troubled relationship with Hunter after his brother died of brain cancer. She found the unloaded gun in Hunter's truck on Oct. 23, 2018, panicked and tossed it into a garbage can at a grocery store in Wilmington, where a man inadvertently fished it out of the trash. The defense has suggested Hunter Biden had been trying to turn his life around at the time of the gun purchase, having completed a detoxification and rehabilitation program at the end of August 2018. Hunter Biden 's daughter Naomi took the stand for the defense Friday, telling jurors about visiting her father while he was at a California rehab center weeks before he bought the gun. She told jurors that he seemed 'hopeful' and to be improving, and she told him she was proud of him. As she was dismissed from the stand, she paused to hug her dad before leaving the courtroom. President Joe Biden said last week that he would accept the jury's verdict and has ruled out a pardon for his son.