Hunter Biden convicted on federal firearms charges

While the trial at J. Caleb Boggs Federal Courthouse lasted only seven days, Hunter Biden has fought the case in court since June 2023, when he was first charged. That month, he and the Justice Department began discussing a plea deal that would have allowed Biden an opportunity to avoid criminal prosecution.

However, those talks quickly stalled after Judge Noreika, a Trump appointee, raised several questions about the deal’s logistics, highlighting stark differences between prosecutors and defense attorneys over the possibility of an immunity provision. The two sides couldn't find a compromise, and Hunter Biden was formally indicted on Sept. 14, 2023.

Hunter Biden’s counsel repeatedly submitted motions to throw out the indictment between then and the trial’s June 3 start date, but Noreika rejected each of them.

Building the case against Hunter Biden

During the trial, prosecutors had no shortage of evidence for their case, in large part due to Hunter Biden’s openness about his own earlier drug use.

Prosecutors played about an hour of Hunter Biden’s self-narrated memoir, “Beautiful Things,” using his own words against him to paint a picture of a yearslong crack-cocaine addiction between 2015 and 2019.

Additionally, prosecutors presented several text and WhatsApp messages obtained from both Hunter Biden’s iCloud account and through his laptop, which was infamously left at a Delaware computer repair shop in late 2020.

Some of the texts contained coded language such as “baby powder,” “party favor” and “chore boy,” which expert witness and Drug Enforcement Administration agent Joshua Romik testified were references to cocaine and paraphernalia.

Other messages were notably more explicit. In one message sent on Oct. 13, 2018 — one day after Hunter Biden purchased the revolver — he wrote about “waiting for a dealer named Mookie” in a 7-Eleven parking lot. In another message sent a day later, he wrote, he was “sleeping on a car smoking crack.”

The prosecution’s case also relied heavily on testimony from Hunter Biden’s former partners, who attested to his longstanding crack addiction before, during and after the time he bought the firearm.

Zoe Kestan, his ex-partner, testified Wednesday to Hunter Biden’s consistent crack smoking habit from when she met him in 2017 through 2018, including on Sept. 22 — less than three weeks before he purchased the firearm.

Hallie Biden — Hunter Biden’s sister-in-law and former girlfriend — also testified about finding Hunter’s revolver in the center console of his truck on Oct. 23, 2018, 11 days after he purchased the gun.

She told the jury she was cleaning Hunter’s pickup truck that morning as he slept in her Delaware home. As she inspected the car's interior, she discovered the revolver stashed in the truck’s unlocked center console, along with bullets, remnants of crack cocaine and drug paraphernalia, she said.

Hallie Biden quickly placed the gun and bullets in a pouch before throwing it out in a nearby grocery store trash can, she said. Within hours, a can collector had found the gun and taken it home, later returning it to police, who left it in storage for years before it would become key evidence in the FBI’s investigation into Hunter Biden. 

Representing Hunter Biden in court, defense attorney Abbe Lowell repeatedly emphasized the prosecution’s “very high” burden of proof, telling jurors during closing statements that the prosecution had played a “magician’s trick” by diverting attention to the months and years before Hunter Biden’s firearm purchase.

“They blurred all those years,” he said.

During his cross-examination of Romik, Lowell suggested data showing Hunter Biden’s near-daily hundred- or thousand-dollar ATM withdrawals didn’t equate to amounts typical of a drug user. Romik quickly corrected Lowell, stating to the court that the withdrawals actually do match what could be expected of an addicted person.

Additionally, Lowell asked Romik if Hunter Biden ever sent messages using coded drug language between August and November 2018, around the time he purchased the firearm.

While Romik agreed that Hunter Biden had not done so, he added that both the Oct. 13 text about “waiting for a dealer named Mookie” and the Oct. 14 text that he was “sleeping on a car smoking crack” were so explicit that they didn’t require interpretation.

“With the exception of the October texts where he said that he was smoking crack,” Romik answered.

Hunter Biden also faces nine federal tax-related charges, including tax evasion. He has pleaded not guilty on all counts and is scheduled to face trial in California in September.

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