The gun possession trial of Hunter Biden, son of the current US president, began this Monday (3) in a court in Wilmington, in the state of Delaware, with the selection of the jury and the presence of the American first lady , Jill Biden.
The president’s wife, who is not Hunter’s biological mother (son of his first wife, the now deceased Neilia Biden), arrived at court to support the president’s son, who will be tried for a crime that could lead to him being sent to prison if is found guilty.
This is the first time in US history that the son of a sitting president has faced trial. In this case, the process could affect the Democrat’s electoral campaign in the November 5th presidential election, as Republicans, especially Donald Trump, often use it as a weapon against him.
Biden’s son is accused of lying in October 2018, when he failed to acknowledge drug use on a form to buy a 38-caliber Colt Cobra revolver, which he kept for 11 days.
Hunter Biden’s lawyers asked for the trial to be postponed to allow time to seek more witnesses and analyze the evidence provided by prosecutors, but District Judge Maryellen Noreika denied the request.
This Sunday (2), Noreika also took a step back in defending the president’s son, blocking one of his expert witnesses and excluding important evidence that Hunter hoped to use.
Noreika responded to a request from the special prosecutor investigating the case, David Weiss, to bar one of the expert witnesses on his behalf, a Columbia University psychiatrist who had allegedly tried to poke holes in prosecutors’ claims that the president’s son knew he was addicted in 2018 when he purchased the gun.
The judge also blocked the lawyers from using a key piece of evidence, in their opinion, an altered version of a federal firearms form that Hunter Biden filled out when he purchased the gun in 2018 and that was modified in 2021 by store employees. of weapons.
Hunter Biden has pleaded not guilty to all three counts of illegally purchasing and possessing weapons, crimes that carry a maximum sentence of 25 years in prison, although sentences are generally shorter for those without a criminal record.
For lying on the form at a Wilmington store, he faced three charges: making false statements, the first for checking a box stating that he was not addicted to drugs and the second for providing the information to the store knowing it was false. The third charge is possession of the weapon for 11 days, even though he knew he was addicted to drugs.
Hunter Biden, 54, has publicly acknowledged that he struggled for decades with alcohol and drug addiction, which was exacerbated after the 2015 death of his brother Beau Biden from a brain tumor.
When he purchased the gun in 2018, he claimed he was spiraling into depression after divorcing Kathleen Buhle, with whom he had three children, and was also going through a particularly difficult time because of his crack addiction, as he recounted in his memoir “Beautiful Things”, published in 2021.
The accusations against Hunter Biden are the result of an investigation that was opened in 2018 during the administration of Donald Trump (2017-2021) and that the former president himself, future Republican candidate for the November elections, used to attack his opponent Biden .
The son of the current president is facing another trial in California, in which he is accused of having avoided paying US$1.4 million (R$7.3 million) in taxes.
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