When Assistant U.S. Attorney Derek Hines began his opening statement by saying, “No one is above the law,” it was the only rhetorical acknowledgment the jury received that Hunter Biden’s trial was not a typical gun charge.
Mr. Hines seemed intent on trying the run-of-the-mill case of a drug addict accused of buying an illegal gun. But in doing so he seemed to <오즈의 마법사>It was as if the wizard had instructed the twelve jurors not to pay any attention to the amazing sight they were seeing.
Pay no attention to the last name of Wilmington’s most famous defendant. Pay no attention to First Lady Jill Biden, who sat in the front row behind the accused and whom she raised as her own son. Pay no attention to Mr. Biden’s famous lawyer, Abbe Lowell, or millionaire Hollywood lawyer Kevin Morris, also in the front row.
And pay no attention to the 50 or so members of the media who take up most of the audience space. Among them is a documentary film team paid for by Mr. Morris.
The 12 jurors were left to reason the matter out for themselves. Several of them stole glances at the defendant, as if trying to match the image of a 54-year-old man in a dark suit, flag lapel pin and tortoiseshell reading glasses with the crack addict in the testimony. At one point, Mr. Biden smiled his genetically familiar broad smile as he spoke with Mr. Lowell during a court break.
But in most cases, the defendants showed the somber side of men who face up to 25 years in prison. He sat expressionless and listened to his jury as he read an audio version of his memoir, ‘Beautiful Things,’ which included the observation, “We’ve all been in a room where we can’t afford to die.”
The narrator was referring to a series of Los Angeles hotels, including the Chateau Marmont, where Biden once had a crack job for several weeks, but he could just as easily have been referring to Courtroom 4A at the J. Caleb Boggs Federal Building in Wilmington. Dell.
Jill Biden, wearing a light green suit, maintained a somewhat somber expression throughout the morning. (She left later that day for a congressional outing.)
After Lowell’s opening statement in court, she quietly said “it was great” to the two women on either side of her, her daughter, Ashley Biden, and Biden’s wife, Melissa Cohen.
During a break, Biden’s wife angrily confronted court observer Garrett Ziegler. He posted excerpts from Ashley Biden’s diary on her own company’s website and her Morrissey is being sued for doxxing her own personal information.
“You have no right to be here,” Melissa Cohen Biden told Mr. Ziegler, adding a nickname.
Minutes later, Ms. Biden, who is Jewish, suggested in the presence of several reporters that Mr. Ziegler had expressed anti-Semitic views about him and other Democrats, saying, “I find it questionable that he would make such a derogatory slur about Jared Kushner.” “he added.
The presence of Mr. Ziegler, who did not respond to a request for comment, was a reminder of how eagerly the president’s critics had anticipated his son’s trial as revenge for former President Donald J. Trump’s conviction in Manhattan last week. There are three other trials he is currently awaiting, including the Don trial and two cases brought by the Justice Department.
Nevertheless, for them, the prospect of cheering on the Biden administration’s Justice Department in nonviolent gun possession cases is terra incognita. It’s like a jury deciding the fate of a son from Wilmington.
