Special counsel in Hunter Biden case plans to call his ex-wife, brother’s widow as witnesses in upcoming trial
Written by ABC Audio. All rights reserved. on May 21, 2024
(WASHINGTON) — In court papers filed ahead of a June 3 trial, special counsel David Weiss’ office suggested they would call multiple women who had relationships with Hunter Biden to testify in his felony gun case, including his ex-wife, Kathleen Buhle, and the widow of his late brother Beau Biden, Hallie Biden.
The revelations emerged late Monday in a trial brief filed by the government. The 97-page document includes the law and evidence prosecutors plan to use to prove that Hunter Biden committed three felonies when he procured a firearm in 2018 while under the influence of drugs.
Hunter Biden has pleaded not guilty.
The filing does not name Buhle or Hallie Biden. But the descriptions make their identities clear.
“Witness 1 was previously married to the defendant,” prosecutors wrote in the filing. “They divorced in April 2017, but through 2018 she would check his vehicle from time to time because she did not want their children in a vehicle with drugs.”
Prosecutors described Witness 3 as a woman who “was in a romantic relationship with the defendant in October 2018, and before and after.”
“Witness 3 will also establish that the defendant possessed the gun and she discarded it in an outdoor trash receptacle at the Janssen’s Market in Wilmington, Delaware after removing it from his vehicle,” prosecutors wrote.
ABC News has previously reported that Hallie Biden found the Cobra 38SPL revolver and discarded it in a garbage bin.
A third unidentified woman prosecutors plan to call “was previously in a romantic relationship” with Biden and “observed the defendant using crack cocaine frequently—every 20 minutes except when he slept.”
Prosecutors in Weiss’ office also indicated that they intend to draw heavily from passages in Hunter Biden’s 2021 memoir, Beautiful Things, in which Biden addressed his addiction. They also plan to enter into evidence several messages that demonstrate his addiction at the time of his gun purchase, on Oct. 12, 2018.
The trial is scheduled to begin on June 3 in Wilmington, Delaware, before Judge Maryellen Noreika.
Earlier on Monday, Hunter Biden appealed Noreika’s denial of his motion to dismiss the charges. A panel of federal appellate judges has already turned down a similar effort. Noreika has repeatedly blocked Biden’s efforts to delay the trial.
Prosecutors say Biden lied on a federal form about his drug use when he obtained a Colt Cobra 38SPL revolver in 2018, after he later acknowledged in his memoir, Beautiful Things, that he was addicted to drugs around that time. He owned the firearm for 11 days and never fired it, his attorneys have said.
Biden was indicted by special counsel Weiss last September.
Copyright © 2024, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.
