The widow of Hunter Biden's brother told jurors in his federal gun trial Thursday about the moment she found a revolver in his truck, describing how she put it into a leather pouch, stuffed it into a shopping bag, and tossed it in a trash can outside a market near her home. "I panicked, and I wanted to get rid of them," Hallie Biden testified about finding the gun and ammunition in the vehicle's console in October 2018, per the AP. "I didn't want him to hurt himself, and I didn't want my kids to find it and hurt themselves." The purchase of the Colt revolver by Hunter Biden—and Hallie Biden's frenzied disposal of it—are the fulcrum of the case against him.
Federal prosecutors say the president's son was in the throes of a heavy crack addiction when he bought the gun. He's been charged with three felonies: lying to a federally licensed gun dealer, making a false claim on the application by saying he was not a drug user, and illegally having the gun for 11 days. Hallie Biden, who had a brief romantic relationship with Hunter after Beau Biden died in 2015, testified that from the time Hunter returned to Delaware from a 2018 trip to California until she threw his gun away, she did not see him using drugs. That time period included the day he bought the weapon.
Much of her testimony focused on Oct. 23, 2018, the day she tossed the gun. Hunter was staying with her and seemed exhausted. Asked by the prosecutor if it appeared that Hunter was using drugs around then, she said, "He could have been." As Hunter slept in her home, Hallie Biden went to check his car. She said she was hoping to help him get or stay sober, free of both alcohol and cocaine. She said she found the remnants of crack cocaine and drug paraphernalia. She also found the gun Hunter purchased in a box with a broken lock that kept it from fully closing, along with ammunition. Hallie said she considered hiding the gun but thought her kids might find it, so she decided to throw it away.
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"I realize it was a stupid idea now, but I was panicking," she said. Hunter Biden watched expressionless from the courtroom during her testimony. She told jurors that she found crack at her home and saw him using it. She was with him occasionally when he saw dealers. Prosecutor Leo Wise asked Hallie about her own 2018 trip to California, where she visited Hunter at the Roosevelt Hotel, and asked her whether she was also using drugs. "Yes, I was," she said. "And who introduced you to it?'" "Hunter did," Hallie said as Hunter rested his face on his hand and looked down. "It was a terrible experience that I went through, and I'm embarrassed and ashamed, and I regret that period of my life," she added. Hallie testified she stopped using drugs in August 2018, but that Hunter continued smoking crack.
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