https://www.wfaa.com/article/news/verify/national-verify/hunter-bidens-laptop...https://www.wfaa.com/article/news/verify/national-verify/hunter-bidens-laptop...AP SETS THE STANDARD FOR POLITICAL REPORTING.
DONATE
Menu
Image
Show Search
Nancy Pelosi fall
Meteor shower tonight
Poll: Trump’s Cabinet picks
Your weekend plans
LeBron James
U.S. News
Hunter Biden’s ex-wife and former girlfriend testify at trial about finding his drug paraphernalia
By CLAUDIA LAUER, RANDALL CHASE, COLLEEN LONG and MICHAEL KUNZELMAN
Updated 7:08 PM CST, June 5, 2024
Share
The latest: Follow the AP’s live updates from Hunter Biden’s criminal trial.
WILMINGTON, Del. (AP) — Hunter Biden’s ex-wife and a former girlfriend testified Wednesday in his gun trial about finding his crack pipes and other drug paraphernalia, and jurors saw photos of the president’s son bare-chested in a bubble bath and heard about his visit to a strip club.
As the first lady sat in the front row, the courtroom grew quiet when Kathleen Buhle, who was married to Hunter for 20 years, walked in. She testified that she discovered her husband was using drugs when she found a crack pipe in an ashtray on their porch on July 3, 2015, a day after their anniversary. When she confronted him, “he acknowledged smoking crack,” she said.
The trial, about whether he lied on a gun purchase form in 2018 when he said he wasn’t using drugs, has quickly become a highly personal and detailed tour of the mistakes and drug use of Hunter Biden, whose struggles have been tabloid fodder for years and were used publicly by Republicans, including in their stalled impeachment effort against the president.
“He told me,” she said.
Prosecutors also called Zoe Kestan, who testified under immunity about meeting Hunter Biden in December 2017 at a strip club in New York where she worked. During a private session, he pulled out a pipe and began smoking what she assumed was crack.
“He was incredibly charming and charismatic and friendly, and I felt really safe around him,” she said. “I remember after he had smoked it, nothing had changed. He was the same charming person.”
Advertisement
Kestan detailed for jurors when she saw him use drugs, buy drugs, talk about drugs or possess drug paraphernalia. Prosecutors asked her where he stored his drugs and pipes, and she testified he kept them in pouches and other places, such as a sunglasses cases.
On cross-examination, Kestan acknowledged that she had no contact with him in October 2018, the period when he bought the gun.
Jurors were shown dozens of pages of Hunter Biden’s memoir, “Beautiful Things,” written in 2021 after he got sober. And they heard lengthy audio excerpts from the book, which traces his descent into addiction following the death of his brother, Beau Biden, in 2015 from cancer. The memoir covers the period he bought the gun, though it doesn’t mention the weapon specifically.
Lowell has said Hunter Biden’s state of mind was different when he wrote the book than when he purchased the gun, when he didn’t believe he had an addiction. And he’s suggested Hunter Biden might have felt he had a drinking problem at the time, not a drug problem. Alcohol abuse doesn’t preclude a gun purchase.
Advertisement
The Delaware trial comes after the collapse of a plea deal with prosecutors that would have resolved the gun case and a separate California tax case. He’s now facing a separate trial in September on charges of failing to pay $1.4 million in taxes.
Hunter Biden has since pleaded not guilty and has said he’s being unfairly targeted by the Justice Department, after Republicans slammed the now-defunct plea agreement as a sweetheart deal for the Democratic president’s son.
In Congress, Republicans have for months pursued an impeachment inquiry seeking to tie President Biden to his son’s business dealings. So far, GOP lawmakers have failed to uncover evidence directly implicating President Biden in any wrongdoing. But on Wednesday, House Republicans accused Hunter and the president’s brother James Biden of making false statements to Congress as part of the inquiry.
Advertisement
At his criminal trial, Hunter Biden’s personal messages have been shown as evidence, including some that came from a laptop he left at a Delaware repair shop and never retrieved. In 2020, the contents made their way to Republicans and were publicly leaked, revealing some highly personal messages about his work and his life — some that appeared in congressional hearings. He has since sued over the leaked information.
The information was deemed Good enough for trial, wasn't it?
You can do the search for truth.
I already know it.
https://nypost.com/2022/03/18/intelligence-experts-refuse-to-apologize-for-sm...The truth hurts, dunnitt?
There's no Demand for retraction, because it's true.
Pages: 
