Hunter Biden trial highlights: Naomi Biden testifies about her father’s drug use

The judge sent the jury home after there were no more defense witnesses left to testify on Friday. Lowell did not rule out calling at least one more witness to the stand Monday. Outside court, he would not elaborate on who the witness might be or whether he would call Hunter Biden to the stand.

The jury will return to court on Monday morning.

As Naomi left the witness stand, she stopped to hug her dad before quickly walking out of the courtroom with Secret Service agents. She wiped her eye as she left, but it was unclear whether she was crying.

When Hunter was ready to leave, he motioned to the first row of family members, including Jill Biden. Jill took Hunter’s hand and held it until they got to the door, then put her arm around his wife Melissa, to guide her toward her husband.

Naomi said she probably saw her father only once during his visit to New York in mid-October 2018.

Wise showed Naomi records indicating that she texted Hunter on Oct. 17, but that he did not respond until several hours later asking whether she was awake and telling her to call him.

At 2 a.m., Hunter texted Naomi asking where the keys to his truck were, and whether her boyfriend could meet and swap vehicles.

“Right now?” she responded.

“Do you know what your father was doing at two o’clock in the morning and why he was asking you for the car then?” Wise asked.

“No,” replied Naomi, adding that her father “still seemed good and I was hopeful.”

In a text to her father at the time, however, Naomi wrote, “I’m really sorry dad I can’t take this.”

Naomi Biden told prosecutor Leo Wise she was aware of her father’s drug use when she went to visit him in California in August 2018.

“I knew that he was struggling with addiction,” she said.

Naomi said she couldn’t recall when she first became aware of her father’s drug use, but that it was sometime after her uncle Beau Biden died in 2015.

Hunter Biden stared intently at his daughter, Naomi Biden, as she testified.

In October 2018, Naomi traveled from Washington to New York in her father’s truck to move her boyfriend’s belongings.

She said Hunter Biden’s truck was in good shape when she drove it. She told defense attorney Abbe Lowell she didn’t see any drug paraphernalia or evidence of drug use in the truck.

Speaking about the August 2018 visit, Hunter Biden’s daughter said “I hadn’t seen my dad in a long time, and I knew he was in a rehab facility there. He reached out.”

Naomi said she and her boyfriend, who is now her husband, met Hunter and his “sober coach” at a coffee shop.

“I told him I was so proud of him,” Naomi said.

Hunter Biden’s daughter has taken the stand in his federal gun trial.

Defense attorney Abbe Lowell is questioning the owner of the Delaware gun store where Hunter Biden bought a handgun in October 2018.

Ronald Palimere said he was next door at another business he owned when he received a call from gun shop employees asking him to come over.

“Anytime we have celebrities, they will usually call me in,” he said.

Palimere said he went to a back office of the gun store, where an employee asked about the form of identification Hunter Biden had provided.

“There was discussion about the use of a passport, and whether I was OK with the use of a passport,” said Palimere.

“I said, ‘yes, sure,’” Palimere said.

“Were you trying to have the sale go in a hurry?” Lowell asked.

“I was trying to not hold the sale up,” Palimere replied.

The defense next calls gun store owner Ronald Palimere to the stand.

Prosecutor Leo Wise asked Turner whether he had met with defense attorneys before his testimony.

Turner said his interaction with defense attorneys after being subpoenaed was “a mess.”

“They can’t be on time for nothing,” said Turner, who appeared irritated with defense attorney Abbe Lowell during his direct examination.

Turner said he wrote Hunter’s vehicle registration number in a box on the form for supplemental information. But on the form shown in court, that box is empty.

“Where is it?” Lowell asked, prompting prosecutors to ask for a sidebar discussion with the judge.

“There’s no such reference,” Lowell said after he resumed questioning Turner.

“There should be,” Turner said.

Lowell also noted that certain information on the form was entered in black ink, while other information was in red ink. Turner said he switched pens while filling out the form.

“How come?” Lowell asked.

Turner said the red ink is easier to see, for audit purposes, the background check number, date and the background check system’s initial response on whether the purchase should proceed.

Turner said the instructions for both the buyer and the seller are clearly spelled out on the form.

Turner said that before he ran the background check, another employee, Gordon Cleveland, showed him the form and a copy of Hunter Biden’s passport.

“It was missing information,” Turner said, explaining that the form was missing Hunter Biden’s signature and a supplementary form of identification showing Hunter’s address, which was not on the passport.

Defense attorneys for Hunter Biden have called their first witness in his federal gun crime trial.

Attorney Abbe Lowell questioned Jason Turner, a former employee at the Delaware gun store where Hunter bought a handgun in October 2018. Turner was the store employee who ran the required federal background check after Hunter Biden filled out paperwork for buying the .38 caliber Colt revolver.

Prosecutors say Hunter Biden lied about being a drug user and addicted to crack cocaine when he filled out the federal firearms purchase form.

Defense attorney Abbe Lowell has said he would call James Biden as a witness.

After the jurors were dismissed for a morning break, defense attorney Abbe Lowell told the judge he was making an oral motion for acquittal.

Lowell said he will lay out the grounds for his motion in a written submission expected to be filed later in the day.
“I appreciate you letting me know what’s coming,” the judge said.

While the judge was questioning Lowell about his motion, Hunter Biden’s wife, Melissa, shook her head.

The prosecution has rested its case against the president’s son Hunter, who is accused of lying on a federal gun-purchase form when he said he wasn’t using drugs at the time he bought a revolver in 2018.

Prosecutors say Hunter Biden was actively using drugs and purposefully lied on the form. They called his ex-wife and a former girlfriend to testify that his drug use was habitual. His brother’s widow, Hallie Biden, also testified how she found the unloaded gun in his truck, wrapped it in a bag and tossed it in a garbage can at a nearby market. Police later found it.

He has pleaded not guilty. Defense lawyer Abbe Lowell has said Hunter Biden did not believe he had a serious drug problem at the time of the gun purchase and that there was no attempt to deceive anyone.

Romig said a photo taken in December 2018 shows Hunter Biden holding what appears to be a crack pipe.

Prosecutor Derek Hines also played a video taken on Hunter Biden’s phone in December 2018 of chunks of a white substance on a digital scale. Romig said the video appears to show about 2 grams of crack cocaine.

On cross-examination, defense attorney Abbe Lowell asked Romig whether he investigated any of the alleged drug dealers who were texting with Biden.

Romig said he did not investigate anyone because he was not involved in the Hunter Biden case.

“This is not my investigation,” he said.

Prosecutor Derek Hines led DEA special agent Joshua Romig through a series of text messages that prosecutors say were exchanged between Hunter Biden and three different drug dealers in the spring and summer of 2018.

Romig said the language in the text exchanges was indicative of drug deals.

DEA special agent Joshua Romig is testifying in the Hunter Biden gun trial.

Prosecutor Derek Hines asked Romig about how cocaine flows into the United States from countries such as Colombia and Peru.

Romig also explained that crack cocaine is a more powerful form of the drug derived from powder cocaine. Hunter Biden is accused of lying about being addicted to crack cocaine when he bought a gun in October 2018.

On cross-examination, defense attorney David Kolansky noted that the amount of residue Brewer tested was “minimal.”

He also noted that Brewer tested the pouch in October 2023, five years after the pouch was recovered by police who were called after Hallie Biden threw it in the trash can.

Kolasnky also noted that the tests Brewer did do not indicate when the drug residue got on the pouch or how it got there.

Wise handed Brewer a leather pouch in which Hunter’s sister-in-law and former lover Hallie Biden put the gun before tossing it in a trash can outside an upscale grocery store near her home 11 days after he bought it.

Brewer said he tested the pouch to determine whether there was any trace of drugs or drug residue.

“I found a minimal amount of white powder, or off-white powder,” Brewer said. The powder was found on the interior flap and in the bottom of the pouch.

Brewer said he tested the powder with a chemical solution and gas chromatography.

“Did you reach a conclusion about the substance you tested?” Wise asked.

“Cocaine was identified within the residual white powder that I sampled,” Brewer said.

Hunter Biden’s gun trial in Delaware resumed Friday with prosecutors calling an FBI forensic chemist examiner to the witness stand. Prosecutor Leo Wise is questioning Jason Brewer, who is an expert in analyzing controlled substances. Hunter Biden is charged with falsely denying that he was a drug user or addict when he purchased a firearm at a Wilmington gun store in October 2018.

Hunter Biden’s criminal gun trial is resuming. Federal prosecutors are expected to call two more witnesses before resting.

She left France on Thursday evening where she was attending D-Day events with President Joe Biden. She’ll return to France for a state dinner.

House Republicans issued criminal referrals Wednesday against President Joe Biden’s son and brother, accusing them of making false statements to Congress as part of the GOP’s yearlong impeachment inquiry.

Abbe Lowell, Hunter Biden’s attorney, said in a statement that the referrals are “nothing more than a desperate attempt by Republicans to twist Hunter’s testimony so they can distract from their failed impeachment inquiry and interfere with his trial.”

The White House has said in the past that President Biden would not pardon Hunter, but he was asked in an interview Thursday whether he would accept the outcome of his son’s trial, and he said: “Yes,” according to ABC.

He also said “yes” when asked whether he’d rule out a pardon.

Key witnesses in the trial have included Hunter Biden’s ex-wife, Beau Biden’s widow Hallie Biden and Zoe Kestan, a former romantic partner. President Biden’s brother James was also called as a witness.

Read more about the trial’s witnesses here.

Hunter Biden was supposed to have avoided prosecution in the gun case altogether, but a deal with prosecutors fell apart last year. He was subsequently indicted on three felony gun charges. He also faces a trial scheduled for September on felony charges alleging he failed to pay at least $1.4 million in taxes over four years.

The widow of Hunter Biden’s brother told jurors in his federal gun trial Thursday 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 trash can 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 the fulcrum of the case against him.

President Joe Biden’s son was in federal court, prepared to plead guilty to misdemeanor tax offenses. The culmination of a sprawling investigation, the deal between Hunter Biden and prosecutors was going to spare him a politically explosive trial in the middle of his father’s reelection campaign and likely prison time.

But it all fell apart.

Now, Hunter Biden is on trial on federal gun charges in a case brought by his father’s Justice Department at a time when America’s political and legal worlds are colliding like never before. Dogged for years by investigations, scrutinized over his troubled personal life and vilified by Republicans, the younger Biden is now also confronting the threat of felony convictions and time behind bars.