Less than two weeks before Hunter Biden is set to go to trial for felony gun charges, his father, President Joe Biden, paid a visit to one of the upcoming trial’s key witnesses.
Last night, Joe Biden visited his daughter-in-law Hallie Biden, the widow of Beau Biden and ex-girlfriend of Hunter Biden, according to the White House pool report. Beau Biden was deployed to Iraq and it is Memorial Day weekend.
White House spokesman Andrew Bates told the New York Post on Monday that Joe Biden and his daughter-in-law did not discuss Hunter Biden’s upcoming trial.
“No,” Bates said. “He visited her because of the approaching 9th anniversary of Beau’s passing.”
Beau Biden died from brain cancer in 2015 at the age of 46. After his death, Hunter and Hallie had a turbulent romantic relationship as Hunter spiraled into drug addiction and hauled in millions from his foreign business dealings.
The president does not appear to be distancing himself from Hunter Biden as the criminal trial is set to get underway. Joe Biden’s visit to Hallie Biden follows a state dinner held by the White House last week with Hunter Biden and Attorney General Merrick Garland on the guest list.
Garland is responsible for appointing special counsel David Weiss, who is leading the prosecution of Hunter Biden. The younger Biden’s attorneys have unsuccessfully sought to dismiss his gun charges based on arguments that Weiss is unlawfully appointed and selectively prosecuting Biden, even though Weiss’s boss is an appointee of Biden’s father.
Three of Hunter Biden’s exes, including ex-wife Kathleen Buhle and Hallie Biden, are expected to testify about Hunter’s drug addiction at his gun trial beginning next week, the New York Post reported based on the prosecution’s trial brief filed last week. The women are not named in the court filings, but they are identifiable based on data from Biden’s abandoned laptop, Biden’s memoir, public reports, and other available records.
Weiss and his team of prosecutors cite an excerpt from Hunter Biden’s memoir, Beautiful Things, where he mentions his failure to reconcile with Hallie in October 2018 because of his severe addiction to crack cocaine. The memoir, published in 2021, gives an intimate account of Biden’s struggles with drug addiction.
Hallie Biden will testify that she observed Hunter Biden using drugs on multiple occasions, and she and her children discovered drugs and drug paraphernalia when they searched Hunter’s belongings in the fall of 2018. In addition, Hallie will note Hunter Biden’s inability to keep track of multiple phones, and the prosecution will introduce text messages between them related to Hunter’s addiction.
The defense is prepared to contest Biden’s gun charges on Second Amendment grounds and dispute the definitions of “is” and “addict” as they relate to the gun purchase forms Biden filled out in October 2018 when he purchased a firearm in Delaware, court filings show.
Biden’s attorneys will cite New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. Bruen, a 2022 Supreme Court ruling that strengthened the Second Amendment by limiting New York’s ability to restrict applications for concealed carry licenses. The defendant’s father strongly opposed the Bruen ruling, given his support for gun restrictions.
U.S. District Judge Maryellen Noreika ruled at a court hearing on Friday the prosecution will have to show Biden was using or addicted to drugs around the time he purchased the firearm, a blow to the defense. She will allow Biden’s lawyers to dispute evidence introduced from Hunter Biden’s abandoned laptop archive. Prosecutors are going to use Biden’s laptop data in addition to evidence stored on Apple iCloud backup servers for Biden’s iPhone and iPad.
Hunter Biden is facing three federal gun charges for allegedly possessing a firearm while addicted to crack cocaine and lying about his drug addiction on mandated gun forms. Special counsel David Weiss and his team are pursuing the case alongside federal tax charges leveled against Biden in California. Hunter Biden has pleaded not guilty to all the charges.
The gun trial is scheduled to begin on June 3.
Editor’s note: This article has been updated to include comment from the White House.