WILMINGTON, Del. — Federal prosecutors used Hunter Biden’s voice and text messages to make the case Tuesday that President Biden’s son was a drug addict who lied on paperwork to obtain a revolver in 2018.
On the first day of testimony in the federal courtroom in Delaware, prosecutors played Hunter Biden’s audio narration of his memoir in which he detailed his drug use, and they showed jurors text messages in which he claimed to have smoked crack days after purchasing the weapon.
The jury also saw several videos, including one with a shirtless Hunter Biden holding what appeared to be a crack pipe. Another video showed a white substance on a scale.
Testifying for the prosecution, FBI Special Agent Erika Jensen detailed expletive-laced, panicked texts between Hunter Biden and Hallie Biden, the widow of his brother, Beau, and his onetime romantic partner. In the texts, Hunter Biden angrily berated her for throwing away his gun and warned that it would trigger a federal investigation.
Ms. Jensen also verified in her testimony that a laptop recovered from a Delaware repair shop in 2019 belonged to Hunter Biden.
Prosecutors said Hunter Biden’s words prove he was abusing drugs when he filled out a federal firearms application in October 2018 claiming he was not an “unlawful user” of controlled substances. Hunter Biden faces three felony charges of lying on a gun form.
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“Addiction may not be a choice, but lying and buying a gun is a choice,” prosecutor Derek Hines told jurors in his opening statement.
“No one is above the law, it doesn’t matter who you are or what your name is,” he said, echoing President Biden’s response to the Justice Department’s prosecution of former President Donald Trump.
Defense attorney Abbe Lowell told jurors that prosecutors can’t prove Hunter Biden knowingly lied on the gun form. He emphasized that much of the evidence presented by prosecutors involved instances before and after Hunter Biden purchased the gun.
Mr. Lowell said Hunter Biden didn’t consider himself an addict at the time of the gun purchase because he had just left rehabilitation. People with addictions tend to be in a “deep state of denial” about their drug use, Mr. Lowell said.
Government prosecutors played long excerpts from the audiobook of Hunter Biden’s memoir, “Beautiful Things,” in which he details his four-year period of addiction.
In the audio clips, Hunter Biden described his “superpower” of being able to find crack in any town and his recounting of walking into a “high-crime neighborhood” in Los Angeles, as well as a dayslong party at an upscale Beverly Hills hotel in which some of the attendees stole valuables from his pockets.
As his voice filled the courtroom, Hunter Biden sat still, looked down at the defense table and rested his chin on his hands. First lady Jill Biden, who attended the trial in the morning, looked directly at the display screen while the excerpts were shown. At other times, she looked directly at her stepson and the jury box.
Ms. Jensen authenticated a series of text messages recovered from Hunter Biden’s devices, including his infamous laptop, which became a flash point of controversy during the 2020 election.
Hunter Biden and allies of the president have long disputed the laptop’s authenticity. More than 50 former intelligence officials signed a letter during the election claiming the laptop story “has all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation.”
The president’s son previously insisted that the laptop’s contents were fabricated, hacked, stolen or manipulated.
Ms. Jensen also reviewed bank records that showed large cash withdrawals weeks before Hunter Biden purchased the gun from a Wilmington firearms store. On the same day Hunter Biden purchased the gun, he withdrew $5,000 from his bank account. All told, Hunter Biden withdrew $151,640 in cash from September through November 2018.
Ms. Jensen also authenticated text messages from Hunter Biden in which he claimed to be smoking crack days after the gun purchase. In one text, sent the day after he bought the gun, Hunter Biden wrote that he was “waiting for a dealer.”
Other messages showed him setting up meetings with dealers and exchanging information about quantities and prices. In a Dec. 18, 2018, message, Hunter Biden wrote, “I’m insane and an addict,” prosecutors said.
Mr. Lowell said earlier that Hunter Biden would often lie to Hallie Biden about his whereabouts because he didn’t want to see her.
Under cross-examination, Ms. Jensen acknowledged that Hunter Biden might not have been using drugs continuously from 2015 to 2019, including when he bought the gun.
“I didn’t get the sense it was the entire period,” she said, noting periods when Hunter Biden was in rehabilitation or not using crack cocaine.
She also acknowledged that the bulk of the texts sent from Hunter Biden were in January and February 2019, roughly six months after the gun purchase.
Mr. Hines read text messages between Hunter Biden and Hallie Biden exchanged on Oct. 23, 2018, the day she discovered the gun and 11 days after he purchased it.
“Did you take that from me … are you insane?” Hunter Biden wrote. “This is no game. And you’re being totally irresponsible and unhinged.” In later messages, he added “tell me now” and “this is very, very serious.”
Hallie Biden responded, “Call me!!!!”
Mr. Lowell objected to Mr. Hines’ reading of the messages, but U.S. District Court Judge Maryellen Noreika overruled it. He will likely question Hallie Biden about the texts when she testifies later this week.
NBC News reported a tense moment in a hallway of the courthouse when Hunter Biden’s wife, Melissa Cohen-Biden, approached former Trump aide Garrett Ziegler and told him, “You have no right to be here, you Nazi piece of s—!” Mr. Ziegler told an NBC reporter he had done nothing to provoke the outburst.
Hallie Biden is one of two Biden family members scheduled to testify in the case. Mr. Lowell said Tuesday that he plans to call as a witness the president’s brother James Biden. He said Hunter Biden looked at James Biden as more than an uncle but a “friend.”
James Biden helped his nephew through rehabilitation stints and even paid for a partial stay at a facility, Mr. Lowell said.
House Republicans have accused James Biden of engaging in shady business deals with Hunter Biden. They have also focused on loans that President Biden made to his brother after he had left the vice presidency in 2017 and whether the president was involved in any of James Biden’s business transactions.
Testifying before Congress in February, James Biden insisted he never used his famous brother’s name to exert influence or benefit himself in business.
• Jeff Mordock can be reached at jmordock@washingtontimes.com.