Closing arguments underway in Hunter Biden trial, prosecution calls evidence 'overwhelming'

Closing arguments began Monday in Hunter Biden's Delaware gun trial. The prosecutor emphasized the weight of witness testimony while the defense argued the jury must meet a "high burden" for a conviction. 

“The evidence was personal; it was ugly and overwhelming," prosecutor Leo Wise said of the testimony from Biden associates last week detailing the first son's alleged crack cocaine addiction around the time that he purchased a firearm in a Wilmington gun shop. 

Hunter Biden was charged in Delaware by Justice Department special counsel David Weiss with three felony crimes in connection to 2018 firearm purchase while he was using drugs. The accusations include lying to the licensed gun dealer, making a false claim on the application used to screen firearm's buyers by declaring he was not a drug user, and illegally possessing the firearm for 11 days.

The prosecution has zeroed in on proving Biden's drug use at the time of the purchase. “The defendant knew he used crack and was addicted to crack at the relevant time period,” Wise said, according to CNN. 

Wise argued that federal standards require that Hunter Biden was “actively engaged” in drugs around the time of the purchase and that the prosecution does not have to prove the first son used drugs on the day he visited the gun store. 

“You can convict on those facts alone,” Wise said.

“It started years before [the gun purchase] and continued for months after,” Wise said of the drug use, according to CNN. Two of Hunter Biden's ex-girlfriends, including his one-time sister-in-law Hallie Biden, testified to Biden's crack cocaine use in the timeframe of his gun purchase. 

“I panicked and wanted to get rid of them,” Hallie Biden said of the guns and bullets she found in Biden's car. “I didn’t want him to hurt himself,” she added. Hallie also said she found “remnants of crack cocaine." 

Biden's defense attorney, Abbe Lowell, began his closing argument by urging the jury not to convict the first son "improperly." 

Reasonable doubt is not the same as “is not suspicion or conjecture,” Lowell said.

He called the prosecution's case a "magician's trick" to secure a conviction without the necessary evidence. He argued the bar is set at proving Hunter Biden knowingly violated the law when he marked that he was not using drugs on a federal gun purchase form. Lowell said prosecutors have not proved beyond a reasonable doubt that Biden knew when he bought the gun that what he was doing is illegal.

“With this very high burden, it’s time to end this case,” Lowell said, according to CNN.