(Wilmington) The jury in the trial of Hunter Biden resumed its deliberations on Tuesday to decide whether the son of the American president, campaigning for his re-election, is guilty or not of illegal possession of a firearm in 2018, against a backdrop of addiction to drugs.
After two weeks of debates, often in the presence of the first lady and mother-in-law of the accused, Jill Biden, the 12 jurors deliberated for an hour Monday and met again Tuesday around 9 a.m. (Eastern time) in court federal court in Wilmington, Delaware (east), to agree on a verdict.
It must be unanimous under penalty of cancellation of this unprecedented criminal trial against a child of a sitting president.
Hunter Biden, a 54-year-old lawyer and businessman turned artist, has been appearing since June 3 in this city, stronghold of the Biden clan, for having lied about his drug consumption when he bought a Colt-type revolver in 2018 Cobra in a gun store, a crime in the United States.
Hunter Biden “knew that he was a crack user or (that he was) addicted,” prosecutor Leo Wise insisted, in the presence of Jill Biden.
The accused, who did not testify, pleads 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.”
Biden support
The Republican Party, under the orders of Donald Trump, is seeking at all costs to tarnish Joe Biden through his son’s setbacks, to the point of opening an impeachment investigation into the head of state. At issue: the affairs of the younger Biden in Ukraine and China. So far, no compromising evidence has been provided.
Hunter Biden is also scheduled to appear in California in September on tax fraud charges.
His affairs, which are the focus of conservative media 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.
Less than five months before the November 5 election, the Biden couple showed their support for Hunter, like Jill Biden kissing him in the courtroom and Joe Biden who expressed his “ endless Love “.
But the president has pledged not to grant a pardon if he is convicted.
The trial revived memories of Hunter Biden’s addictions, to which the prosecution returned in detail, going so far as to show a photo taken by an ex-girlfriend showing him shirtless in his bath, a crack pipe protruding from his hand.
Descent into hell
Prosecutors also used extracts from his autobiography “Les Belles Choses”. Hunter Biden says he never got over the death in 2015 of his brother Beau Biden from brain cancer at age 46. The two brothers survived a car accident in 1972 that killed their mother and little sister.
Then he describes his descent into hell, his wanderings in search of drugs around seedy convenience stores, and his failed attempts at detoxification, between the years 2015 and 2019.
In 2018, he was having a romantic affair with his brother’s widow, Hallie Biden. 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 issues.
But for the defense, the doubt must benefit it, because Hunter Biden was in a withdrawal phase on October 12, 2018 when he bought the weapon.
The jury must decide on two counts of lying in the documents necessary for the purchase of the revolver in 2018, and a third on its illegal possession. If convicted on all counts, he could theoretically face up to 25 years behind bars, but an alternative sentence to prison could also be decided.