Hunter Biden’s federal gun trial has begun. This is what the case hinges on

“I was sleeping on a car smoking crack.”

That’s what Hunter Biden texted Hallie Biden two days after he purchased a firearm in Wilmington, Delaware.

Prosecutor Derek Hines shared text messages with the jury obtained from Biden’s laptop, in which Biden scolded Hallie Biden, his former girlfriend and the widow of his brother Beau Biden.

Calling her “insane,” he asked her to say if she took the handgun that the defense said was located in a lockbox in Biden’s Ford pickup truck.

“This is no game. And you’re being totally irresponsible and unhinged,” Biden wrote.

“Did you take that from me, Hallie?” he asked.

“I’m sorry, I just want you to be safe, this is not safe,” she said.

A seemingly relaxed Biden was seen laughing with defense attorney Abbe Lowell before the proceedings began in the wooded courtroom in downtown Wilmington on Tuesday.

The question at hand is if Biden lied on a form when he bought the gun, asserting that he wasn’t using drugs at that time. He only had the gun for 11 days before Hallie Biden discarded it behind a grocery store.

Biden told Hallie Biden to go back to the store and retrieve the firearm, but when she got there, it was gone. Police were called to the scene and a man looking for recyclables in the trash was identified as the person having removed it.

The prosecution and the defense in the federal gun charges agree on one thing: The president’s son struggles with substance abuse.

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What’s disputed is whether he was actively using drugs when he bought a gun on 12 October 2018.

The prosecution used extensive excerpts from Biden’s 2021 memoir Beautiful Things to argue that he was. The defense says he didn’t knowingly break the law as Biden didn’t think he was actively using at the time.

“I use my superpower to find crack anywhere, anytime,” Biden’s voice could be heard saying in the courtroom as an excerpt was played.

Biden’s entourage exceeded a dozen people on the first day of testimony including First Lady Jill Biden, half-sister Ashley Biden, wife Melissa Cohen, and close friend and financial benefactor Kevin Morris. Biden glanced at his wife as she was mentioned by his lawyer to emphasize his focus on family.

At one point during the audiobook excerpts, Ashley Biden was seen leaving the courtroom in tears. Before she left, the first lady put her arm around her.

Derek Hines began opening statements by saying that “no one is above the law” and that defendants are prosecuted because of the “choices they made, not because of who they are.”

“He lied in a federal form in a background check,” he added.

Hines argued that the purchase of a Colt Cobra 38 Special Revolver was illegal because Biden was using crack cocaine, something the defense said doesn’t fit with his behavior and schedule at the time.

“A sale is a sale and that was their goal that day,” Lowell said of the gun shop staff, adding that Biden had been “led” to the handgun display after coming in saying he was just “browsing.”

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The prosecutor noted that Biden also bought a speedloader and ammunition, the kind that explodes on impact and tears apart its target.

Lowell said during his opening statement that a person who recovers always calls themselves an “addict,” regardless of whether they have recovered or not, meaning that Biden may have referred to himself as such when he purchased the gun, but that it doesn’t mean he was an active user. He also noted that the gun was never loaded and only left its lockbox on a single day.

The defense attorney argued that the charges Biden is facing include the need for Biden to “knowingly” have broken the law. Getting into the semantics of the question on the form, he noted that the law prohibits someone who is a person who uses illicit drugs from owning a gun, not someone who has been.

Biden “escaped” into addiction following the deaths of his mother, sister, and brother, Lowell added.

Large parts of the testimony of FBI special agent Erika Jensen focused on the extensive texts obtained from the laptop and an iCloud account linked to Biden.

“Can you get baby powder? The really soft stuff,” one text read, seemingly in reference to cocaine.

Quoting Biden, the prosecution said he had a “summer and spring of nonstop debauchery.”

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Hines also concentrated on the large number of cash withdrawals amounting to $150,000 over the course of three months between September and November 2018.

According to a receipt, he paid in cash – handing over $900 – for the gun and the other items. The defense argued that he withdrew cash to spend on his recovery and that he didn’t have a credit card at the time.

In October 2018, there were only four days during which he didn’t make any withdrawals, the prosecution said.

Some of those who are set to testify in the trial include Biden’s exes Kathleen Buhle, Zoe Kasten, and Hallie Biden.

In the end, the case hinges on whether the prosecution will be able to convince the jury beyond a reasonable doubt that Hunter Biden knowingly lied on a federal form regarding whether he was actively using illicit drugs at the time.

The defense began its work of seeding that reasonable doubt on Tuesday, admitting to Biden’s struggles with addiction, but saying that it doesn’t apply to the time frame around the gun purchase on 12 October 2018.