Hunter Biden, the son of President Biden, is scheduled to go on trial Monday in Delaware on charges he violated federal gun laws in 2018 when he purchased a firearm. Biden was charged in September by U.S. Special Counsel David Weiss with three felonies stemming from his purchase and possession of a Colt Cobra .38 revolver in October 2018. The first two charges overlap, Reuters reports. He is accused of making a false statement material to a firearms sale and making a false statement in a firearms transaction record.
Prosecutors contend he committed a crime when he ticked a box indicating "no" next to a question asking if he was an unlawful user of a controlled substance or addicted to a controlled substance. The third charge is that Biden violated a law that bars users of illegal drugs or drug addicts from possessing a firearm. He was charged separately with tax crimes in California in December, also by Weiss. Biden has pleaded not guilty in that case which is scheduled to go to trial in September.
For the first two gun charges, the government must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Hunter Biden knowingly made a false statement. For one of the first two charges the government must also show the false statement was material to the gun sale. For the possession charge, the government must prove that Biden was either an unlawful user of a controlled substance or was a drug addict; that he knowingly possessed a firearm; and that when he possessed the firearm he also knew he was an unlawful user of a controlled substance or a drug addict. The government said it has videos and photographs of Hunter Biden smoking crack or with drug paraphernalia as well as messages sent to purported street dealers arranging drug purchases. The evidence was collected from Biden's iCloud account, laptop and phone messages. The government said it may call Hunter Biden's ex-wife, Kathleen Buhle, and other romantic partners to describe his addiction around the time of the gun purchase and possession. Prosecutors plan to introduce excerpts from Biden's 2021 book, ""Beautiful Things, in which he described himself as a "crack addict" with no plans beyond "the moment-to-moment demands of the crack pipe."