Jury retires to deliberate in Hunter Biden trial, verdict in sight

The jury in Hunter Biden’s trial retired Monday to deliberate and decide whether the US president’s son was guilty of illegally purchasing and possessing a firearm in 2018.

After two weeks of debate, which delved into his past drug addiction, the 12 jurors retired behind closed doors after the final arguments of the prosecution and the defense.

Hunter Biden, a 54-year-old lawyer and businessman turned artist, has been appearing since June 3 in a federal court in Delaware, in Wilmington, stronghold of the Biden family, for having lied about his drug consumption when he bought in 2018 a Colt Cobra type revolver in a gun store, a crime in the United States.

Hunter Biden “knew that he was a crack user or (that he was) addicted,” insisted prosecutor Leo Wise during his indictment, in the presence of the First Lady of the United States and mother-in-law of the accused, Jill Biden, according to American media.

In California too

The accused, who did not testify at his trial, pleaded not guilty. His lawyer, Abbe Lowell, assured jurors that “he was no longer using drugs” when he purchased the gun, which “was never, ever loaded, carried or used during the 11 days it was in his possession.

For years, Republicans, and Donald Trump first and foremost, have sought to tarnish Joe Biden through his son’s setbacks, going so far as to open an impeachment investigation into the head of state around Hunter Biden’s affairs in Ukraine and China, without the latter providing compromising evidence so far.

But Hunter Biden must also appear in California in September for tax fraud. His affairs, which are the focus of conservative media favorites like Fox News, risk parasitizing his father’s attempts to mark the contrast with Donald Trump, convicted on May 30 in a criminal trial for hidden payments to an X-rated movie star, a first in history for a former president of the United States.

No grace in sight

Five months before the November 5 election, the presidential couple showed their support for Hunter Biden, like the First Lady kissing her stepson in the courtroom, or Joe Biden, who had assured his “infinite love” in a press release at the opening of the trial. But the American head of state assured that he would not grant him a presidential pardon if he was convicted.

The trial revived memories of Hunter Biden’s addiction problems, recalled in detail by the prosecution. Prosecutors notably used as evidence large extracts from Hunter Biden’s autobiography, “Les Belles Choses”. He says he never recovered from the death, in 2015, of his brother Beau, from brain cancer at the age of 46, the only one with whom he had survived in 1972 a car accident which had killed their mother and little sister.

Then he describes his descent into hell, including his wanderings in search of drugs around seedy convenience stores, and his failed attempts at detoxification, between the years 2015 and 2019.

In 2018, Hunter Biden was having a romantic affair with his brother’s widow, Hallie. She was the one who discovered the gun and threw it in a trash can. Hallie Biden, as well as Hunter’s first wife and an ex-girlfriend he dated in 2018, have all confirmed his drug problems. But for the defense, the doubt must benefit him, because Hunter Biden was in a withdrawal phase the day he bought the weapon.

The jury must decide on two counts relating to alleged lies in the documents necessary for the purchase of the revolver in 2018, and a third on illegal possession of the weapon.

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AFP

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