Federal prosecutors in Hunter Biden’s history-making federal trial brought out his infamous laptop on Tuesday as they laid out their case against him for allegedly illegally owning a firearm.
But it wasn’t even the only bombshell moment on Tuesday, as proceedings got underway in the first criminal case ever to be prosecuted against the son of a sitting president. The fireworks began early Tuesday when Hunter Biden’s wife reportedly went scorched earth on a former Trump aide.
“You have no right to be here, you Nazi piece of shit,” Melissa Cohen Biden told former Trump White House aide Garrett Ziegler as he tried to enter the courtroom during a brief morning break, according to an NBC reporter who heard the comment. (Hunter Biden sued Ziegler last year after his website allegedly published hundreds of thousands of leaked emails from Biden’s laptop.)
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The infamous Macbook Pro 13, whose contents were released shortly before the 2020 election after Biden allegedly left it at a Delaware repair shop a year prior, was among the first pieces of evidence introduced by prosecutors in the Delaware trial on Tuesday.
Hunter, 54, is fighting three charges after he allegedly lied on an October 2018 federal form to buy a $5,000 gun by saying he was not addicted to drugs.
FBI agent Erika Jensen testified that a series of messages recovered from the laptop, dated between April 2018 and July 2018, described Biden’s drug use around the time he bought the gun.
One message showed a photo of white power on a scale, Jensen said. “You want 10 grams?” another message to Hunter Biden allegedly read.
NBC reported that as the laptop was introduced as evidence, Cohen Biden shook her head and whispered to a lawyer next to her.
“No one is above the law. It doesn’t matter who you are, or what your name is,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Derek Hines said in his opening remarks. “We would not be here today if he was just a drug addict.”
Hines revealed that among the prosecution’s witnesses who will testify is Hallie Biden, the widow of the president’s late son, Beau Biden. He said Hallie will testify about finding the gun, disposing of it, and using drugs with Hunter, with whom he had a relationship after Beau’s death.
“Hallie will testify about her own crack use [with Hunter],” he added.
Jurors later heard excerpts of Hunter’s memoir in which he described his “superpower of finding crack anywhere, anytime.”
In his own opening statement, defense attorney Abbe Lowell insisted to jurors that Hunter may not have knowingly broken the law. He noted Hunter’s state of mind in 2018 and that he was in a “deep state of denial” about his drug use.
CNN reported that one juror appeared emotional during Lowell’s opening statement, reaching for tissues in her bag to dab her nose and eyes.
“Hunter bought a small handgun,” Lowell said. “It was never loaded. He never used it.”
He also said that the pouch where the gun was found was actually Hallie Biden’s and that she threw away the firearm near a grocery store days after it was purchased.
“They have to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Hunter knowingly violated the law,” he said.
Cohen Biden did not comment to NBC about her outburst at Ziegler earlier in the day. But Ziegler, who didn’t have a retort to Cohen Biden, later told NBC the insult was “sad” because he had not approached anyone at the trial.
“For the record, I’m not a Nazi, I’m a believer in the U.S. Constitution. I haven’t said one thing to them,” he told NBC, adding that he was at the trial because “it’s prudent for me to be here.”
Minutes after the confrontation, Cohen Biden returned to the courtroom and looked at Ziegler before taking her seat next to first lady Jill Biden.
