Hunter Biden was getting ripped off for crack, expert says — as prosecutors rest their case
WILMINGTON, Del. — The jurors at Hunter Biden’s felony gun trial got a lesson in the ABCs of drug deals Friday, as a DEA agent decoded messages from the first son attempting to score crack cocaine.
Drug Enforcement Administration supervisory special agent Joshua Romig explained at one point what President Biden’s son meant on May 6, 2018, when he texted a dealer asking, “Can you get baby powder? The really soft stuff.”
“They are asking for powdered cocaine, not crack cocaine,” said Romig — the last prosecution witness in the trial of Hunter, 54, on charges of of illegally owning a gun while hooked on drugs.
“This is a rudimentary, pretty standard code,” Romig said of that particular request, later adding, “a lot of these messages don’t need interpretation.”
The jury was also shown a July 25, 2018, message to Hunter from someone named Michael saying, “He said 600. Cool??”
Hunter responded: “Ok.”
“$600 for the 10 grams,” Romig translated before commenting. “I think it’s pretty significantly higher than the fair market value.”
On April 18, 2018, Hunter sent another dealer, Clifford O’Brien, a message saying: “If you can be here by 6:45 I can do another 1.4 on topkod [sic] what you owe.”
“He’s asking for another 1.4 grams on top of whatever O’Brien is bringing,” Romig told the jury, adding the amount the first son sought was significantly more than the standard $10 “dime bags” requested by most druggies.
“1.4 grams would be the equivalent of about 14 dime bags of crack cocaine,” he explained.
On April 27, Biden messaged O’Brien again with a photo of a digital scale and chunky white powder on top, saying: “Under any value known to any market in the world what I paid is 60% greater.”
“This to me looks like crack but could also be pressed cocaine,” Romig said, adding: “The person who sent that message is clearly upset the amount is less than what they paid for.”
After Romig wrapped up, prosecutors from special counsel David Weiss’ office rested their case against Hunter and the younger Biden’s team called three witnesses before the weekend break.
First, Hunter’s team called Jason Turner, an employee of StarQuest Shooters & Survival Supply in Wilmington, where the first son bought the .38-caliber Colt Cobra revolver on Oct. 12, 2018.
Turner was questioned about the forms of identification that Hunter provided the shop as part of the background check they conducted before sending him off with the firearm.
Turner testified that the store accepted Hunter’s passport — an uncommon form of identification for gun purchases — supplemented with the first son’s car registration showing his address.
On the gun application form, Turner recalled, “I wrote ‘car registration,'” under the identification section.
But when he was shown the form, the section was blank, prompting him to say, “Where is it? It’s not there.”
The second defense witness, shop owner Ron Palmiere, testified that he was asked by Turner and another employee to approve the use of Hunter’s passport for the screening, which he did.
“I was trying not to hold up the sale,” Palmiere admitted.
The final witness called Friday was Hunter’s eldest daughter, Naomi Biden, whose testimony about seeing her dad in rehab brought tears to Hunter’s eyes as he sat in court..
Naomi recalled that when she saw her father at Los Angeles treatment facility The View in August 2018, he seemed at his healthiest point since the death of Beau Biden, Naomi’s uncle and Hunter’s brother, in 2015.
Hunter came to court Friday accompanied by his wife Melissa Cohen Biden, as has been the case during every day of the trial.
Also in court were at least ten supporters, including first lady Jill Biden, Hunter’s stepmom, and Hunter’s aunt Valerie Biden Owens, the sister of President Biden.
Abbe Lowell, Hunter’s lead defense attorney, hugged Valerie in the courtroom at one point, saying: “You have such an amazing family in so many ways.”
Lowell would not say Friday whether he planned to call additional witnesses Monday. First brother James Biden had previously been identified as a potential defense witness.
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Lowell added that the defense will decide over the weekend whether Hunter himself will take the stand.
Calling Hunter poses considerable risks to the defense. Prosecutors would almost certainly ask him under oath whether he smoked crack cocaine around the time he purchased the .38-caliber Colt Cobra revolver at the center of the case on Oct. 12, 2018.
Eleven Days in October
A key undertaking during Lowell’s cross-examining throughout the trial has been to distance prosecution witnesses such as Hunter’s ex-wife Kathleen Buhle, former girlfriend Zoe Kestan, and sister-in-law-turned-lover Hallie Biden from Hunter during the 11-day stretch he possessed the gun.
Neither Buhle nor Kestan could recall any significant interactions with Hunter during that time.
When Hallie took the stand, she recounted how Hunter would effectively ghost her for long stretches of time before resurfacing almost out of the blue.
Hallie went to a rehab facility in Pennsylvania on or around Oct. 6, 2018, and Hunter joined her for a session.
But then she didn’t see him in person until either the night of Oct. 22 or the morning of Oct. 23.
Hunter and Hallie had exchanged text messages during that stretch. But despite her fuzzy recollection, Lowell made her admit that she wasn’t with him until the very end of that 11-day stretch.
Lowell also got Hallie to admit that she couldn’t remember seeing Hunter smoke crack during that time, despite at least two text exchanges suggesting he was using days after buying the gun.
Hallie also recounted discovering drug paraphernalia in Hunter’s truck, which was parked on her lawn on the morning of Oct. 23, 2018, the same day she found the revolver and threw it away.
