On October 23, 2018, Hallie Biden says she went to clean out Hunter Biden’s truck while he was asleep and found drugs and a gun.
“I did find some remnants of crack cocaine” and drug paraphernalia, she said.
“Oh, and the gun, obviously,” Hallie Biden said, chuckling.
Hallie Biden said this was the first time she ever saw a gun up close.
Presented the gun by prosecutors and asked if it was the one she found, Hallie Biden said she “can’t know, but that looks like it.”
She described her first reaction upon discovering the gun and bullets: “I panicked and wanted to get rid of them.” “I didn’t want him to hurt himself” or for her kids to hurt themselves, she testified.
“I was afraid to kinda touch it. I didn’t know if it was loaded,” she said.
The defense argues the gun was never loaded at any point in time.
Judge Maryellen Noreika, right, speaks with lawyers involved with Hunter Biden’s trial on Tuesday, June 4, in Wilmington, Delaware. Bill Hennessy
Federal district Judge Maryellen Noreika is overseeing Hunter Biden’s gun case in Delaware.
Noreika, a Donald Trump appointee, was confirmed by the US Senate in August 2018 by voice vote. She had the support of both Democratic senators from Delaware. Under the Senate’s blue slip tradition, nominees for district court seats require the support of home state senators to move forward.
Sen. Chris Coons, a Democrat, praised Noreika in a statement after her nomination was announced. He described her and another appointee as “seasoned attorneys,” with “impressive trial skills, deep experience in federal practice, and profound respect for the law.”
Before becoming a federal judge, Noreika was a former patent lawyer in Wilmington, Delaware. She grew up in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and graduated from University of Pittsburgh School of Law in 1993.
Noreika’s political spending has gone to both parties. On the presidential level, federal records indicate that she gave $1,000 to then-New York Sen. Hillary Clinton’s 2008 campaign for the Democratic nomination. She later donated $2,300 to the eventual 2008 Republican nominee, then-Arizona Sen. John McCain. She donated to the subsequent GOP nominee as well, giving $2,500 to Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign in 2012.
Noreika also financially supported Sen. Tom Cotton, a conservative Republican from Arkansas, during his 2014 senate race. She also donated $1,000 in 2009 to the DSCC, the Senate Democrats’ campaign arm.
CNN’s Tierney Sneed, Marshall Cohen and Jack Forrest contributed to this report.
On Capitol Hill, Democrats are dismissing attempts to compare Hunter Biden’s trial with former President Donald Trump’s conviction last week.
“Hunter Biden is not running for president. President Donald Trump’s running for president,” said Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland. He also noted that Democrats have not rushed to Hunter Biden’s defense in this criminal case, or alleged that the trial is a “sham” in the way that Republicans did with the Trump trial.
“Democrats are not out there saying that Hunter Biden’s trial is a farce, it’s a fraud, it’s rigged. We’re not attacking the justice system,” Raskin said.
“They do that because of the extraordinary cognitive dissonance that a party – which claims to be representing religious piety – has wrapped itself around in an adjudicated sexual assailant and fraudster who just got convicted by a jury of his peers for paying $130,000 in hush money to a porn star right after his fifth child was born. That’s where their party is.”
Rep. Robert Garcia of California agreed: “He’s not the president of the United States, he’s not a public figure.
“So Hunter Biden should be held accountable for whatever he’s done,” he said, adding that this “is not comparable to the multiple crimes that clearly Donald Trump has committed.”
Pressed on how Hunter’s trial could affect his father’s chances in November, Garcia replied, “I think the President loves his son. And I think that we all agree that Hunter’s made some mistakes, and he’s got to be held accountable for those. I don’t think they have anything to do with his election for president.”
