Hunter's Week-Long Gun Trial

After a week-long trial with testimony from a plethora of exes, gun store employees & LEOs, the Prosecution rested on Thursday. The defense tried to score pity points with Hunter's daughter on Friday.

Jury selection was done in one day. The next morning, Juror 16 emailed the court to drop off the case because “she is unemployed and lives over an hour away.”

Garret Ziegler, who has been attending court in person, told LawTuber Robert Gouveia that reporting on the trial is complicated by Delaware rules that forbid phones and devices in the courtroom or overflow rooms. He said that NBC has the best system for updating their “live coverage.” They have a team of at least three: one to sit in the court and write out updates and information with pen and paper, one to run the updates through security, and one in the parking lot, posting the updates to the internet. NBC’s live threads for each day of the trial are found here: Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday.

Prosecutor Derek Hines kicked off his opening arguments by saying that Hunter Biden "chose to illegally own a firearm" and "we’re also here because he chose to lie." He also brought up text messages between Hallie and Hunter the day AFTER the purchase, in which Hunter said he was waiting for his dealer.

Hunter’s lawyer, Abbe Lowell, laid out his arguments in his opening. He said that the Hunter didn’t “knowingly” violate the law because he didn’t consider himself an addict at the time he checked the box. He tried to use the family “traumas” - the 1972 car crash that killed his mother and sister, and the 2015 death of his brother - as excuses—then tried to blame Hallie Biden and the gun store employee who sold him the weapon.

The first witness was an FBI agent with 20 years of experience, Erika Jensen. Agent Jensen was used to authenticate bank statements, receipts, and other documents, all of which backed up clips the prosecution played from Hunter’s audiobook. Then it happened. The LAPTOP was introduced into evidence. Agent Jensen then detailed all the ways the laptop and everything on it had been authenticated. (Don’t hold your breath waiting for the 51 intelligence analysts to apologize for lying to us all in 2020.)

Evidence showed that while Hunter did go to rehab in August 2018, his stint in rehab was 40 days before he bought the gun. In his audiobook, Hunter said he was only clean for about two weeks after leaving rehab. That timeline means he relapsed long before he bought the Cobra.

Then, the receipt showing Hunter’s gun purchase on October 12, 2018, and a text message from Hunter saying he was waiting for his dealer on October 13, 2018, followed up the next day with another message about falling asleep in the car while smocking crack were shown to the jury.