Wilmington, Delaware — A highly anticipated moment in Hunter Biden’s criminal trial took place Tuesday afternoon when the prosecution introduced Hunter Biden’s laptop as evidence during the direct examination of an FBI agent.
Federal prosecutor Derek Hines questioned FBI special agent Erica Jensen on the laptop and federal investigators’ process of verifying its data to prove the device and its contents are authentic before introducing exhibits from the laptop as evidence at trial.
Jensen detailed how law enforcement obtained the laptop’s hard drive in fall 2019 after receiving a tip from a computer store. Hines presented the physical laptop to Jensen, and she held it up for the entire courtroom to see, causing murmurs among the reporters seated in the gallery.
The FBI used forensic tools to extract data from the laptop after obtaining a search warrant, Jensen said as she went into how the device was verified.
Federal investigators verified the laptop data by cross-referencing Biden’s iCloud storage accounts with the computer’s serial number, Jensen testified. She was brought into the Biden investigation in fall 2023 and got up to speed with all of the materials ahead of the trial. Last year, IRS whistleblower Gary Shapley gave similar testimony before Congress on how the laptop was verified.
When the New York Post first reported on emails from the laptop ahead of the 2020 presidential election, social-media platforms censored the outlet, and 51 former intelligence officials signed a discredited letter claiming that the laptop was likely part of a Russian disinformation campaign. When President Trump raised the evidence of foreign influence peddling found on the laptop during a 2020 campaign debate, then-candidate Biden cited the letter in arguing that the laptop was the product of Russian disinformation.
Earlier in 2019, law enforcement had received records from Biden’s devices from Apple Inc. and later obtained a search warrant to collect Biden’s iCloud data, Jensen said. Two iCloud backup files, one for Biden’s iPad and the other for his iPhone XR, contain evidence the prosecution introduced at trial, in addition to the exhibits from the laptop archive.
Hines conducted his direct examination of Jensen on Tuesday, meticulously going through a trove of evidence to suggest that Biden was addicted to crack cocaine at the time he allegedly lied during his purchase of a firearm and for the subsequent eleven days that he possessed the firearm.
Throughout the direct examination, Hines introduced excerpts from Hunter Biden’s memoir, Beautiful Things, playing the audiobook and presenting each page as Biden’s voice read the text. Time and time again, Jensen confirmed the details of the sordid excerpts chronicling Biden’s crack addiction.
Once the iCloud backups and laptop were established, Hines displayed numerous texts between Biden and his associates from the devices.
Some of the texts appeared to reference meet-ups for drug transactions, and at the end of one exchange, Hunter Biden sent his associate a photo of white powder on a scale. An expert witness from the Drug Enforcement Agency is set to testify during the trial to decipher the coded language used by Biden and his associates.
On October 13, 2018, a day after the gun purchase, Hunter Biden appeared to send texts to his love interest and brother’s widow Hallie Biden about seeing a drug dealer.
Hallie Biden is expected to testify and describe Hunter Biden’s drug addiction. She will give her retelling of the events of October 23, 2018, the day she found Hunter’s firearm and threw it into a garbage can at a nearby mall.
Abbe Lowell, Hunter Biden’s defense attorney, raised objections and was overruled when the prosecution introduced short videos from the laptop. The videos appeared to show Biden’s drug paraphernalia, and one of them featured white powder on a scale.
U.S. District Judge Maryellen Noreika sternly instructed Lowell not to provide commentary after he tried explaining one of his objections.
Hines methodically presented bank records of Biden’s large cash withdrawals so the prosecution could corroborate the time line in Biden’s memoir and confirm the details of the gun purchase. The prosecution also showed evidence of Biden’s apparent relapse after his brief stay at a California rehab facility in summer 2018.
Towards the end of Tuesday’s proceedings, Hines concluded his direct examination of Jensen, and Lowell began his cross-examination. The defense is claiming that Biden was not a crack addict at the very moment of the gun purchase, based on his apparent behavioral changes.
“It’s not a diary,” Lowell said of his client’s extremely vivid memoir. Lowell repeatedly stumbled over his words when asking Jensen questions as he sorted through the prosecution’s time line of events.
“Don’t talk over each other,” Noreika instructed Lowell and Jensen, apparently confused by some of Lowell’s questions.
Hunter Biden is facing two criminal charges for lying about his drug addiction during the gun purchase and a third for allegedly possessing the gun while he was addicted to drugs. He pleaded not guilty to the charges last year.
When the excerpts from the memoir were played, Hunter Biden remained stoic and watched on. He paid close attention to the exhibits, wearing large orange glasses to read them and follow along. In the morning, First Lady Jill Biden watched the proceedings to support her stepson, alongside Hunter’s current wife Melissa Cohen and sister Ashley Biden. Kevin Morris, Hunter’s friend and patron, was seated next to Hunter’s family members.
Special counsel David Weiss and his team are prosecuting Hunter Biden on the gun charges in Delaware and on federal tax charges in California. At the start of the proceedings on Tuesday morning, Weiss flashed a smile as he sat in the gallery.
Hines delivered his opening statement, outlining Biden’s crack-fueled escapades and the alleged lie he told on the background-check forms, as National Review reported on Tuesday afternoon. Lowell followed up with his opening statement, disputing that Biden was an addict at the exact moment of the gun purchase.
In the middle of his opening statement, Lowell displayed Hunter Biden’s résumé to show his accomplishments. The résumé did not include Biden’s lucrative seat on the board of the Ukrainian energy company Burisma Holdings, the main subject of the New York Post‘s reporting on Biden’s abandoned laptop.
The trial will resume on Wednesday morning with the rest of Lowell’s cross-examination.