WILMINGTON, Del. — A jury Tuesday found Hunter Biden, the son of President Joe Biden, guilty on three felony gun charges after a weeklong trial that focused on his history of drug addiction.
Biden was charged in federal court in Wilmington with three felony counts tied to possession of a gun while using narcotics; he had pleaded not guilty. The jury started its deliberations Monday afternoon and deliberated for about three hours before it returned the historic verdict.
Biden looked straight ahead at the jury as it delivered the verdict, and he nodded slightly as it was read.
The trial, the first involving the child of a sitting president, came as the president faces a brutal re-election fight against former President Donald Trump in November. First lady Jill Biden was not in the courtroom as the verdict was read and arrived minutes later. She immediately went into a holding room where Hunter Biden went after the verdict.
Two of the counts carry maximum prison sentences of 10 years, while the third has a maximum of five years. Under federal sentencing guideline recommendations, Biden could be sentenced to over a year in prison, but the judge could sentence him to more or less time. Each count also carries a maximum fine of $250,000.
No sentencing date has been set.
In a statement, the president said, “Jill and I love our son, and we are so proud of the man he is today.”
The president said he accepted the outcome of the case "and will continue to respect the judicial process as Hunter considers an appeal. Jill and I will always be there for Hunter and the rest of our family with our love and support. Nothing will ever change that.”
President Biden has the power to pardon his son, but he told ABC News in an interview Thursday that he would not do so.
Hunter Biden issued a statement thanking his wife, family and friends for their support. “I am more grateful today for the love and support I experienced this last week from Melissa, my family, my friends, and my community than I am disappointed by the outcome.Recovery is possible by the grace of God, and I am blessed to experience that gift one day at a time,” the statement said.
His attorney Abbe Lowell indicated they may appeal the verdict.
"We are naturally disappointed by today’s verdict," he said. "We will continue to vigorously pursue all the legal challenges available to Hunter."
Jill Biden attended the trial — which began June 3 and featured explicit testimony from three of Hunter Biden’s former romantic partners about his chronic drug use — on multiple days.
One of the jurors told CNN that “no politics came into play” in the verdict. “President Biden never really came into play for me because his name was only brought up once during the trial, and that’s when it kind of sunk in a little bit, like, oh, wow, this is the sitting president’s son who’s on trial," said the juror, who was not identified. "But you kind of put that out of your mind,” he added.
Two of the counts accused Biden of having completed a form falsely indicating he was not using illegal drugs when he bought a Colt Cobra revolver in October 2018. The third count alleged he possessed a firearm while using a narcotic.
The case was brought by special counsel David Weiss, the Trump-nominated U.S. attorney for Delaware, who was kept on by the Biden-led Justice Department to continue his investigation into the president's son.
"This case was not just about addiction," Weiss said after the verdict. "This case was about the illegal choices the defendant made while in the throes of addiction."
Biden’s defense centered on the language used in the question on the federally mandated gun shop form, which asked “are you an unlawful user of, or addicted to,” a narcotic drug. Lowell noted other questions on the sheet began with “have you ever been,” but not that one. He suggested that Biden had been using alcohol during that period but not crack cocaine and that it would have been easy to tell whether he was on drugs at the time.
“There may be high-functioning alcoholics, but there’s no such thing as a high-functioning crack addict,” Lowell said in his opening statement.
Lowell acknowledged Biden used crack in the months before and after the sale but suggested he was not using it at the time of the sale and did not at that point consider himself an addict, so he did not “knowingly” violate the law.
Prosecutors pushed back against that claim by using passages fromBiden’s book, in which he detailed his struggles with alcohol and drug addiction.
Lowell told jurors in closing arguments that writing after the fact about being an addict in his book, which was published in 2021, does not mean Biden knew he was an addict when he bought the gun.
Prosecutors also pointed to circ*mstantial evidence from witnesses about Biden’s chronic drug use, his text messages and photos of him using drugs to show he was using crack during that time. “The evidence was personal, it was ugly, it was overwhelming,” prosecutor Leo Wise told the jury in his closing argument.
Prosecutors noted that Biden had withdrawn $5,000 in cash on the day of the sale and texted Hallie Biden, the widow of his brother, Beau Biden, the next day that he was looking for a dealer.
Two days after the gun sale, he texted her, “I was sleeping on a car smoking crack.”
Lowell suggested that his client’s claims were “facetious” and that he was simply trying to dodge Hallie Biden. The two had a tumultuous romantic relationship after Beau Biden died. “You have no idea whether he was just saying that or whether he was actually there?” Lowell asked Hallie Biden in cross-examination last week. “Correct,” she replied.
Prosecutors also pushed back against Lowell’s argument that his client could not function on drugs. Another witness Biden had been romantically involved with, Zoe Kestan, testified that when she first saw him smoke crack, she did not notice any change in his demeanor. She also said that his drug use got worse as time went on and that there were points when he was smoking crack every 20 minutes.
Hallie Biden said Hunter Biden introduced her to crack, a time in her life thatshe referred to as “terrible” and “embarrassing.” She said she gave up using drugs in August 2018 and urged him to get clean, as well. She discovered the gun in his car 11 days after he bought it and threw it away outside a grocery store for fear he or her children might hurt themselves.
“I realize it was a stupid idea now, but I was just panicking,” she testified. A passerby found the gun, which led to the criminal investigation.
Republicans — most notably Trump — have targeted Hunter Biden and his relationship with his father. Trump was impeached in 2019 for withholding aid to Ukraine while pressuring President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to announce an investigation into the Bidens and Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani later disseminated the contents of Hunter Biden's laptop to the New York Post in the weeks before the 2020 election.
House Republicans have continued to investigate Hunter Biden and other members of the family since his father became president, and they have criticized Weiss for not being aggressive enough while also accusing the Justice Department of having a two-tiered system for bringing two criminal cases against Trump. At the same time, they have also raised money off of Trump's allegations that the Justice Department has been "weaponized" against Biden's political opponents.
A Republican strategist who asked not to be identified said the conviction takes some of the wind out of the sails of that argument.
“It at a minimum slows the momentum and the clear-cut argument that the Trump campaign previously had about Biden’s weaponization of the justice system. It’s less of a bumper sticker than it was before,” the strategist said.
Biden's conviction comes less than two weeks after Trump was found guilty in New York state court of falsifying business records related to a hush money payment to a p*rn star in the weeks before the 2016 presidential election. He will be sentenced July 11.
The gun charge was initially going to be disposed of as part of a plea deal with Weiss’ office last year. Under the terms of the deal, Biden would have been sentenced to six months' probation for pleading guilty to tax charges, while the gun charge would have been dismissed in two years if Biden honored the terms of what is known as a diversion agreement.
As part of the plea deal, which U.S. District Judge Maryellen Noreika ultimately rejected over concerns about its scope, Biden submitted a statement of facts in which he acknowledged he “was a user of and addicted to crack cocaine at the time” of the gun sale.
The court document, which jurors were prevented from seeing because it was part of the rejected plea agreement, also said that during the 11 days he possessed the gun, “he purchased and used crack cocaine regularly.”
Plea negotiations fell apart following Noreika’s rejection, leading to the indictment on the gun charges in Delaware and another on tax charges in California.
That case is scheduled to go to trial in September.
Owen Hayes
Owen Hayes is an associate producer for the NBC News Washington bureau.
Sarah Fitzpatrick is a senior investigative producer and story editor for NBC News. She previously worked for CBS News and "60 Minutes."
