Hunter Biden’s criminal trial on gun charges will begin in earnest on Tuesday with opening statements and potentially lurid testimony about drug use and phone messages that prosecutors say incriminates the US president’s son. Mr Biden (54) is accused of failing to disclose his use of illegal drugs when he bought a Colt Cobra .38-calibre revolver, and of illegally possessing the weapon for 11 days in October 2018.
He has pleaded not guilty to three felony charges. Mr Biden is the first son or daughter of a sitting president to be criminally tried. The proceeding at the federal courthouse in the Bidens’ hometown of Wilmington, Delaware, comes just days after Republican Donald Trump, the rival to Democratic president Joe Biden for the November 5th US election, became the first former president found guilty of a crime.
READ MORE ‘Pockmarked with bullet holes’: To visit the Balkans is also to ponder the unheeded lessons of history Trump verdict is like ‘pouring gasoline on a fire that’s already burning’ Trump verdict a stunning end to a quintessentially New York legal tale Robert De Niro’s raging at Trump outside courthouse was an extraordinary moment in American public life The trial is expected to centre on Hunter Biden’s years-long crack cocaine use and addiction, which he has discussed publicly and which was a prominent part of his 2021 autobiography, Beautiful Things. He told US district judge Maryellen Noreika at a hearing last year that he has been sober.