How Hunter Biden wrote himself into a drug charge through his memoir (2024)

Two chapters later, he writes about learning how to cook his own crack in a California hotel in 2018.

Federal prosecutors are using these words and other excerpts from Biden’s memoir against him as they attempt to convince a jury that he lied about his drug use when purchasing a firearm in Delaware in 2018. He faces three felony charges related to the gun purchase, including making false statements in filling out the paperwork to purchase the weapon. On the form, Biden allegedly claimed he was not addicted to or using illegal drugs, the indictment says, “when in fact, as he knew, that statement was false and fictitious.”

On Tuesday, prosecutors spent more than an hour playing the audio version in the courtroom of the memoir that Hunter Biden narrated, with the president’s son recounting to jurors in his own voice about using drugs in graphic and personal detail.

“Cooking crack took practice, but it wasn’t rocket science: baking soda, water, cocaine,” Hunter Biden’s voice boomed through the courtroom. “That’s it. I’d decided I wanted to cut out the middleman who could dilute the stuff with God knows what.”

Proving beyond a reasonable doubt that a person used drugs when they were in possession of a gun can be challenging without a drug test, which law enforcement does not have for Hunter Biden. Legal experts say that is why it’s relatively rare that prosecutors charge someone with these types of gun violations without attaching them to another crime. Investigators wouldn’t know someone who possesses a gun was on drugs unless they tested them for narcotics because they were in custody for something else, such as an armed burglary.

“It is really unusual to charge someone with that charge,” said Keith Rosen, a former Delaware federal prosecutor who is now in private practice. “It’s a proof problem.”

But Biden’s memoir is an unusual piece of evidence and provides a road map for prosecutors to help prove he was a drug addict around the time he purchased the weapon and then kept it for 11 days. He is not accused of committing a crime with the gun, and his attorney said in court Tuesday that Biden never loaded or used it.

“The book will show he was addicted to crack before, during and after his possession of the gun,” prosecutor Derek Hines told the jury in opening statements Tuesday.

Hearing the narrated evidence in Biden’s voice was jarring and seemed to take a toll on his family, seated directly behind him near the front of the courtroom Tuesday. His sister, Ashley Biden, dabbed her eyes multiple times with a tissue. First lady Jill Biden leaned into her, their heads pressed together. Eventually, Ashley Biden left the room and didn’t return.

In addition to the memoir, prosecutors are using messages from Hunter Biden’s phone and computer around the time he purchased the gun as evidence in the case. Those messages were obtained through search warrants.

Biden’s lawyer, Abbe Lowell, has argued that the book is not unassailable evidence and was written long after he purchased the weapon. The memoir doesn’t discuss the gun. It delves into his drug addiction around the time he purchased the weapon but not necessarily on the exact day.

Lowell said in his opening statement that prosecutors should have to prove Biden knowingly lied when he filled out the form — “what was his state of mind when he walked into the [gun] store — and not rely on his state of mind when wrote a book in 2021 looking back at his drug use.”

The federal form to purchase a gun asks a prospective buyer to answer yes or no if they are “an unlawful user of, or addicted to, marijuana or any depressant, stimulant, narcotic drug, or any other controlled substance.”

Prosecutors have argued that their burden is only to prove Biden was on drugs “during the time period” he possessed the weapon. But Lowell said in court filings that the wording on the form is unclear, and that Biden may not have been on drugs that day or considered himself an unlawful user of drugs at the time.

“The terms ‘user’ or ‘addict’ are not defined on the form and were not explained to him,” Lowell wrote in a court filing. “Someone, like Mr. Biden who had just completed an 11-day rehabilitation program and lived with a sober companion after that, could surely believe he was not a present-tense addict.”

Biden has been open about his battles with his addiction in his memoir and other venues. During jury selection, prospective jurors were asked about their views and experiences with drug addiction, and juror after juror responded with their loved ones’ battles with addiction.

Robert J. Cottrol, a professor at George Washington University Law who has written extensively about the Second Amendment, said that while Biden’s charge is unusual, it reflects a law that is intended to keep firearms away from people who are actively using drugs.

“Does it make sense to have that apparatus and not in fact charge people who falsify the form?” Cottrol said. “If the purpose of this legislation is to prevent prohibited persons from getting a gun, then shouldn’t we have a penalty for some of those who do so?”