The prosecution is set to rest its case against Hunter Biden on Friday, after nearly a week of hearing from first-hand witnesses about the first son’s drug addiction before, during, and after the time he purchased a Colt Cobra .38 Special in October 2018.

Mr. Biden’s attorney, Abbe Lowell, will then launch a spirited defense, and is expected to make his case through next week. 

On Wednesday, the lead prosecutor in the case, Derek Hines, told the court that he had six witnesses left to question on the stand, and hoped to finish his argument by Thursday. Ultimately, the jury heard from just four witnesses — Mr. Biden’s former girlfriend who is also his brother’s widow, Hallie Biden, two Delaware law enforcement officers involved in the investigation into the disposal of Mr. Biden’s gun, and the man who recovered it from a Dumpster outside of a Wilmington grocery store. 

During Ms. Biden’s testimony on Thursday, Mr. Lowell pressed her aggressively to recall key details about the timeline of Mr. Biden’s addiction. At one point, Mr. Lowell grew visibly frustrated as Ms. Biden replied, “I don’t recall” to a number of his questions.  

Ultimately, Ms. Biden made it clear that she never saw Mr. Biden smoking crack between October 6 and October 22 of 2018 — the time period in which Mr. Biden bought the gun and signed an official form that he was not an unlawful user of controlled substances, an act which prosecutors say violates federal law. 

Mr. Lowell has been trying to sow doubt among the jury throughout the trial, starting with a special agent with the FBI, Erika Jensen, who helped the prosecution prepare for the trial by compiling a selection of messages recovered from Mr. Biden’s laptop and taking excerpts from his 2021 addiction memoir, “Beautiful Things.”

On the first day of the trial, tapes from Mr. Biden’s audiobook, which he read himself, were played for the jury to illustrate the severity of his addiction. Mr. Lowell asked Ms. Jensen to find an excerpt from the book win which Mr. Biden stated explicitly that he was using drugs in October 2018. She said she had no such evidence. 

In one text exchange that Ms. Jensen read aloud, Mr. Biden was arguing with one of his drug dealers. In total, the two men exchanged 62 messages in just one day about buying crack cocaine. 

Similarly, Mr. Lowell asked Ms. Jensen about a string of text messages between Mr. Biden and his crack cocaine dealer in February 2019. The two men exchanged 62 messages in one day. Mr. Lowell calmly asked Ms. Jensen if such a conversation about drugs could be found on Mr. Biden’s phone on any of the days surrounding his purchase of the gun. Again, Ms. Jensen had no evidence. 

When Ms. Biden took the stand, Mr. Lowell made it clear that he wanted her to admit that Mr. Biden was trying to get sober at the time he bought the weapon, and that she had no evidence that he was using drugs at the time he bought the gun. When asked if she had any information that Mr. Biden was high around the time he made the purchase, Ms. Biden said she did not. 

Mr. Lowell’s defense has relied heavily on the wording of the federal form on which Mr. Biden allegedly lies. It asks gun purchasers to answer if they “are” a user of illegal drugs, not if they “were” a user of illegal drugs. Mr. Lowell says of course Mr. Biden was smoking crack months before and months after the gun was purchased, but not on the exact day or even in the surrounding days. 

It will be Mr. Lowell’s turn to call witnesses to the stand on Friday and in the following days.

He is expected to call a forensics expert named Michael Coyer, who will try to debunk a key government claim. When Mr. Biden’s gun was found in the Dumpster at Wilmington, Delaware, the man who recovered it also found a brown leather bag containing ammunition, a speedloader, and cocaine residue. The government says that the proximity of the drug to the firearm is proof that Mr. Biden was using around the time the gun was in his possession. 

Mr. Lowell and Mr. Coyer will introduce a cloud of doubt over that assertion, however. According to the court documents, Mr. Coyer will say that there is no way to prove who put the cocaine residue inside the bag, how it got there, or when it was put there. On Thursday, the man who recovered the gun and the leather bag, Edward Banner, told prosecutors that neither he nor anyone in his home are drug users. 

The owner of the gun shop where Mr. Biden bought the firearm, Ronald Palimere, will also testify at Mr. Lowell’s direction. When Mr. Biden filled out the federal form, a hard copy was given to Mr. Palimere, which was then sent in an email to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms. After that email was sent, however, there was information about Mr. Biden’s truck that was added to the document. Mr. Lowell will again sow doubt by raising questions about why that information was included on the hard copy. 

Of course, Mr. Biden himself could take the stand in his own defense, but his attorneys have so far not made any indication that he has made up his mind about testifying. 

After the jury was selected on Monday, the prosecution and Mr. Lowell told Judge Maryellen Noeika that they expect the trial to last until next Friday, June 14.