A very Delawarean tragedy played out in room 4A at the district courthouse in Wilmington Thursday as Hallie Biden testified for the prosecution at her former lover Hunter Biden’s felony gun trial . The president’s widowed daughter-in-law was supposed to become the first lady of Delaware, maybe first lady of the United States, a Wilmington native told me while observing the day’s drama. But Joseph Robinette “Beau” Biden III died in 2015 of brain cancer, aged 46, leaving Hallie bereft and dashing Joe Biden’s dream that his first-born golden child’s political career as Delaware attorney general would soar to the heights that he, himself, would reach five years later.
So, instead, here was Hallie, 50, in the witness box, having to tell strangers about the torrid affair and crack addiction she shared with her late husband’s black-sheep brother in the ensuing three years. “It was a terrible experience I went through, and I’m embarrassed and I’m ashamed,” she told the jury. “I regret that time of my life.
” The slender brunette dressed soberly in a black pantsuit and V-necked silk blouse, with her hair pulled back in a low bun, as she walked through the courtroom to the witness box at 9:12 a.m., running the gauntlet of Biden family and friends packed into the rows behind Hunter and his lawyers.
Hunter’s second wife Melissa Cohen sat in the front row beside his aunt Valerie Biden Owens, the president’s sister, who has taken Jill Biden’s seat while the.
