Left: Hunter Biden arrives at the White House from Camp David in late July (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta). Right: Hallie Biden departs from Delaware federal court in June (AP Photo/Matt Slocum).
The special counsel who secured Hunter Biden’s felony gun convictions in Delaware, in part due to damning testimony compelled under an immunity grant, is once again trying to force Hallie Biden, Beau Biden’s widow, to testify under the same circumstances, this time in her erstwhile lover’s California federal tax prosecution.
Special counsel David Weiss’ filing Wednesday in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California told U.S. District Judge Mark Scarsi, who recently dressed down the defense, that Hallie Biden’s lawyers made clear that if she was called to testify, she would “at that time refuse to answer questions, invoking the constitutional privilege against self-incrimination.”
But because her testimony “may be necessary to the public interest,” Weiss — as he did in the Delaware case — said he received DOJ approval to move to compel Hallie’s testimony, meaning under the proposed order that “no testimony or other information compelled under this order, or any information directly or indirectly derived from such testimony or information, shall be used against Hallie Biden in any criminal case, except that she shall not be exempted by this order from prosecution for perjury, giving a false statement, or otherwise failing to comply with this order.”
Weiss said that Scarsi’s order is “mandatory upon a proper request such as the one presented here.”
The special counsel made the same request of Elizabeth Secundy, Hallie Biden’s older sister.
In the Delaware trial, where President Joe Biden’s son was convicted of purchasing and possessing a gun while knowing he was an unlawful user of or addicted to drugs, jurors heard that Hallie Biden, on Oct. 23, 2018, tossed a Colt Cobra 38SPL revolver in the garbage behind a grocery store located across the street from a high school, but when she and Hunter went back to the scene later to retrieve the gun, it was gone. The gun was recovered later from one Edward Banner, who was “looking for recyclables in the trash can” and found the firearm.
“Hallie Biden put the firearm in the defendant’s brown pouch she found in his truck, which she knew he used to store drugs and drug paraphernalia,” Weiss recounted the sequence of events. “She then went to Janssen’s Market and disposed of the revolver by putting it in a trashcan outside of the store. Later that day, the revolver was found by Edward Banner, who was looking for recyclables in the trash can. After Hallie Biden notified the Delaware State Police to report the gun missing, Officer Greer recovered the firearm from Banner’s house.”
More Law&Crime coverage: How paternity and alimony lawsuits led to a contempt of court threat and criminal charges in Hunter Biden’s second indictment
Weiss pointed to texts between Hunter and Hallie in the days immediately following the illegal Oct. 12, 2018, gun purchase, texts that spoke of Hunter meeting a “dealer” and, later, “sleeping on a car smoking crack” in Wilmington.
“On October 16, in response to a text message from Hallie Biden saying, ‘I just want to help you get sober, nothing I do or you do is working,’ at Row 129, the defendant responded, ‘What one thing have YOU done to help me get sober Hallie?”” the special counsel added. “These text messages — in which the defendant states that he was ‘waiting for a dealer,’ ‘smoking crack,’ and that he was not sober — clearly establish that he was using crack cocaine while he possessed the firearm.”
The special counsel further suggested that Hallie Biden’s testimony about the lead-up to the gun disposal was key, since it closely matched the jury instructions in the case:
Hallie Biden also testified that late on October 22 or early on October 23, the defendant arrived at her house in Delaware, looking “like he hadn’t slept” and as though he could have been using drugs. She testified that after he went to sleep, she searched the truck he arrived in for drugs and alcohol, something she had done on prior occasions and described it as part of a “pattern,” which is precisely the language used in the Court’s instruction to the jury on the definition of an unlawful user. She testified that found remnants of crack cocaine and drug paraphernalia along with a firearm.
In November 2018, after the gun dump, Hunter and Hallie Biden exchanged more texts, the special counsel said.
“What’s the worst place for me to be trying to stay clean? Delaware,” Hunter said, according to Weiss.
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