“The evidence was personal. It was ugly, and it was overwhelming,” assistant special counsel Leo Wise said in his hour-long closing arguments Monday. “It was also absolutely necessary.”
The photos, texts and testimony detailing Hunter Biden’s addiction “may provoke disgust or sympathy, or both, but the defendant wasn’t charged with being an addict,” Wise said. “Lying to buy that gun is a choice. And that — that — is why we’re here.”
Prosecutors charged Hunter Biden with three felony counts related to a gun he purchased in October 2018, saying he lied about his drug use on a federal form required to buy the gun and then illegally owned the gun as a drug user for 11 days.
A conviction could have political ramifications for President Biden as he runs for reelection and fights Republican accusations that his son’s legal problems are somehow tied to him.
First lady Jill Biden sat in court behind her son, as she has for most of the trial, with Secret Service agents guarding the first family — a vivid, armed reminder of the powerful name invoked in the case of United States v. Biden.
Wise, the prosecutor, urged the panel to set aside the attention and high-profile nature of the case. “People sitting in the gallery are not evidence,” he said.
Hunter Biden attorney Abbe Lowell said prosecutors failed to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Biden knowingly lied on the form about his drug use. Lowell spent his nearly 90-minute closing argument Monday trying to poke holes in the government’s case, which he compared to a magic trick based on distraction.
“They spent hours, literally hours, recounting Hunter’s terrible journey through alcohol and drug abuse,” Lowell said. “It’s time to end this case.” Lowell argued that the prosecution’s case is fatally flawed because it lacks proof that Biden was using drugs in the time period close to the gun purchase.
One of the prosecutor’s most damning pieces of evidence against Hunter Biden is a text message that he sent to Hallie Biden two days after he bought the gun, saying he was “sleeping on a car smoking crack.”
Lowell told the jury that smoking crack was just an excuse Hunter Biden fabricated at the time to avoid seeing Hallie Biden, the widow of Hunter’s brother, Beau. Hunter Biden was in a romantic relationship with her.
“In retrospect, this was not the best way … to put Hallie off,” Lowell said. “When he wrote that in the midst of their relationship, he wasn’t thinking that five years later he would be sitting in a courtroom trying to explain the way they talked to each other.”
The defense lawyer accused prosecutors of twisting out of context Biden’s words about his recovery — particularly his memoir in which he recounted his long struggle with addiction.
When Biden sent a text in late 2018 calling himself a liar and a thief and an addict, that was not a criminal admission but “a cry for help,” Lowell said.
Prosecutors argued that the defense mounted by Hunter Biden was little more than a smoke screen of falsehoods designed to disguise the simple truth about who he was in 2018.
“The defendant was a crack addict and a drug user, and he had a gun. That’s a violation of the law,” prosecutor Derek Hines said.
About two dozen relatives and friends of Hunter Biden were at the courthouse Monday in a show of support. Jill Biden — who attended most of the six-day trial — sat next to Hunter’s wife, Melissa Cohen-Biden.
Biden aunts, uncles and cousins also sat in the gallery, along with prominent local figures including a Wilmington city council member and the pastor of a well-known Baptist church.
When the judge handed the case to the jury for deliberations, the three rows of Biden family and friends became tenser, with some taking deep breaths and looking down at the floor.
Hunter Biden quietly stood up from the defense table and approached his wife to kiss her on the forehead. The two left the courtroom with their arms around each other and entered a small waiting room next to the courtroom where his legal team and relatives will wait for a verdict.
Before sending the jurors to deliberate, U.S. District Court Judge Maryellen Noreika told the panel to do its duty “fairly and impartially. Do not allow sympathy, prejudice, political or other beliefs, public opinion, or any other factor other than the law and the evidence influence your decision.”
To convict or acquit, the jury must reach a unanimous decision on each of the three counts against Biden. The charges against Biden carry a maximum possible sentence of 10 years in prison, but as a first-time offender he is likely to face a far lighter sentence.
