Prosecutors plan to use highly personal evidence in Hunter Biden trial

[Celerity]

Hunter Biden’s former wife and another ex-partner could be called to testify, and intimate texts on drug addiction could be offered as evidence.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2024/05/21/hunter-biden-trial-ex-wife-personal-texts/

https://archive.ph/hSr7c

President Biden, Hunter Biden, Melissa Cohen Biden and Beau Biden Jr. leave the White House in December. (Elizabeth Frantz for The Washington Post)

Hunter Biden, in a trial scheduled to get underway in two weeks, could face testimony from his ex-wife and his brother’s widow, with whom he became romantically involved, according to new filings from federal prosecutors that illustrate just how messy the seemingly simple court case could turn. The filings from special counsel David Weiss provide a window into prosecutors’ plans and how they may reopen some of the most painful moments in the Biden family’s past, potentially embarrassing not only Hunter Biden but also a president whose political career has long been defined by a close-knit family that stuck together through difficult times.

In black and white, the court papers detail the depth of family members’ turmoil as they struggled to grapple with the death of President Biden’s oldest son, Beau, in 2015, and the drug and alcohol addiction of his younger son, Hunter. The family divisions were deepened when Hunter began a romance with Beau’s widow, Hallie. Hunter Biden has been charged with falsely declaring — on a form he was required to fill out to buy a gun in 2018 — that he was not using illegal drugs. By calling women close to Hunter Biden as witnesses and introducing contemporaneous text messages, prosecutors appear to be trying to prove he was in fact abusing drugs at the time he filled out the form. Biden has admitted he was using drugs at the time, including in his memoir.

“I am afraid you are going to die,” Hallie wrote to Hunter at a time when he was in possession of the gun, according to one of the text messages entered into the court record by prosecutors. Two minutes later, she added: “And I can’t live without you.” Hunter Biden’s lawyers declined to comment for this article. Federal prosecutors also declined to comment. Hunter Biden has largely stabilized his life, his friends and associates say, having remarried and relocated to California, but those close to him and the president worry about the toll the upcoming trial could take on someone who has struggled with addiction for much of his life.

While he has viewed the process of making amends and admitting mistakes as part of his recovery, the court documents show just how painful some of that could be. “I am not doing this. You have to get sober for your 5 kids and me,” Hallie Biden wrote in another text message. “Bottom line. Or you lose everyone slowly.” Much about the case is not in dispute. In Hunter Biden’s published memoir, which prosecutors have submitted as evidence, Hunter Biden described himself as someone who was “up twenty-four hours a day, smoking every fifteen minutes, seven days a week.” “All my energy revolved around smoking drugs and making arrangements to buy drugs—feeding the beast,” he wrote.

snip

[badhair77]

1. And the cruelty is the point . . .

I pray he can maintain his sobriety and the family can support each other through this politically-designed nightmare.

[brooklynite]

2. The Biden DOJ believes in cruelty?

[edhopper]

4. Garland appointed

A GOP special prosecutor. The Biden Ad. is not involved.
It was another of Garland's mistakes.

[brooklynite]

6. Remind us who appointed Garland? And which Senate approved his nomination?

[edhopper]

8. David Weiss

GOP loyalist. Violating several protocols for SC.

[badhair77]

9. There's my issue.

Months ago there was an agreement, then there wasn’t an agreement. Now it’s turning very ugly and personal. It seems to be an effort to destroy Hunter Biden’s emotional state and thereby affect his father.

[edhopper]

11. That is

Obvious the plan Garland screwed this one completely.

[former9thward]

7. This is a Biden DOJ case.

100%. A Special prosecutor is not an Independent prosecutor. They work under the AG and the AG has complete control over of them. Any prosecutor uses whatever evidence they think they need to win a case, personal or not, cruel or not. There has been no end of personal material in the Trump case.

[Igel]

3. We've been there.

And enjoyed the spectacle.

Having set the new standard with glee--gratuitous damning "evidence"--it's a bit late to say others need to show greater restraint.

[Prairie Gates]

5. Fascinating

[gab13by13]

10. Ah, once again the argument, "the Biden DOJ."

President Biden is not TSF, he does not tell Merrick Garland what to do.

The argument that no one can criticize Garland because President Biden appointed him just does not cut the mustard.

Hunter Biden has been investigated for 6 years, it was supposed to be about Burisma/China kickbacks. When that turned out to be Russian propaganda, Garland made Weiss a special prosecutor so that he could indict Hunter for lying on his gun application and for not paying 1.4 million dollars in taxes, which Hunter has paid in full.

No word when Garland is going to appoint a pro-Biden special counsel to investigate TSF claiming a 651 million dollar tax write off and then forming a holding company to double dip on the write off. TSF stole at least 100 million dollars and last I checked, he has not paid it back.

Waiting on Garland to show he isn't partisan.