Hunter Biden, left, and his wife, Melissa Cohen Biden, arrives at federal court, Monday, June 3, 2024, in Wilmington, Del. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum); special counsel David Weiss pictured in November 2023. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)
A court filing from the special counsel docketed Tuesday in Hunter Biden’s gun case, the same day he was found guilty of all three felony charges, essentially summarized the damning trial evidence that had jurors telling CNN after the fact that convicting President Joe Biden’s son of crimes was the only option.
Special counsel David Weiss’ court documents, which opposed one of the three Biden motions that called for an acquittal, argued that the evidence was “more than sufficient” for jurors in Delaware to find Hunter guilty.
While Biden’s defense lawyers asserted before the verdicts that the prosecution had “no evidence” that the defendant “knowingly” viewed himself as a crack addict or active user of drugs after he exited rehab, bought a Colt Cobra 38SPL revolver from StarQuest Shooters & Survival Supply, possessed the firearm, and “certified” to the ATF on a form that he was not an unlawful user of or addicted to drugs, Weiss answered that trial witnesses, especially Beau Biden’s widow Hallie Biden, also Hunter’s erstwhile girlfriend, provided plenty of proof to convict.
Biden, jurors have found, illegally possessed the revolver from Oct. 12, 2018 to Oct. 23, 2018, an 11-day period.
The jury heard that Hallie Biden on Oct. 23, 2018, tossed the firearm in the garbage behind a grocery store located across the street from a high school in Delaware, 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. “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.”
Among the “ample evidence” Weiss cited to bash the defense’s acquittal effort were texts between Hunter and Hallie in the days immediately following the illegal Oct. 12, 2018, gun purchase, texts that spoke of 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’s filing 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.”
Weiss further indicated that Hallie Biden sealed Hunter’s fate by testifying about the lead-up to the gun disposal in a way that closely matched the jury instructions of U.S. District Judge Maryellen Noreika:
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.
Then, in November 2018, after the gun dump, Hunter and Hallie Biden texted some more.
“What’s the worst place for me to be trying to stay clean? Delaware,” Hunter said, according to Weiss’ filing.
After also taking into account the drug addiction admissions Biden included in his book “Beautiful Things,” the special counsel argued that it was clear that a reasonable jury could find that the defendant was using and addicted to crack during the relevant time period in which he owned the revolver and that he lied about his drug use to obtain the gun.
“Far from ‘hiding’ his drug use, in October 2018, the defendant was sending text messages to Hallie Biden stating that he was ‘waiting for a dealer’ and ‘smoking crack’ — overt admissions that he was using crack cocaine in the two days after he purchased the gun and during the period when he possessed it,” Weiss summarized. “In any event, the evidence demonstrates that the defendant engaged in a consistent pattern of drug use, including as frequently as every fifteen minutes from 2015 to 2019.”
“A jury could reasonably infer that the defendant continued regularly using throughout the entirety of 2018, including in October, when he possessed the firearm,” he added — and that’s what jurors concluded.
While some jurors who spoke publicly after the guilty verdicts reportedly questioned the wisdom of prosecuting the case in the first place, even viewing it as a “waste of taxpayer dollars,” the panel nonetheless unanimously concluded that the decision to convict on all charges was the right one under the letter of the law.
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