Hallie Biden — the widow of President Biden’s late son, Beau — testified Thursday that she “panicked” when she discovered Hunter Biden’s gun in 2018 and decided to discard the firearm in question.
Hallie Biden took the witness stand Thursday in the federal gun case against her brother-in-law, Hunter Biden, who faces criminal charges that he lied on a federal form about his drug use so that he could unlawfully get a gun.
Hallie Biden, who had been in a brief romantic relationship with Hunter Biden at the time he purchased the firearm, told the jury she found the gun and ammunition in the console of Hunter Biden’s truck in October 2018.
“I was afraid to touch it,” Hallie Biden testified, according to The Associated Press. “I didn’t know if it was loaded.”
She said she considered hiding the gun but feared her children might find it. Instead, she said she stuffed the gun in a shopping bag and disposed of it outside an upscale grocery store near her home in Wilmington, Del. Prosecutors showed surveillance footage of her tossing out the gun.
“I realize it was a stupid idea now, but I was panicking,” she said, the AP reported.
Hallie Biden detailed Hunter Biden’s drug use during the period in which they were romantically involved — after Beau Biden died from brain cancer in 2015. She revealed to the jury that her brother-in-law introduced her to crack cocaine, saying, “Hunter did,” when asked directly by federal prosecutors.
“It was a terrible experience that I went through,” she added. “I’m embarrassed and ashamed, and I regret that period of my life.”
Hallie Biden testified that when Hunter Biden smoked crack, it could leave him “agitated or high-strung, but at other times, functioning as well.”
Hallie Biden could prove to be a key witness against her brother-in-law — with her testimony on his drug use and on her decision to dump the firearm outside the grocery store precipitating the case against Hunter Biden in the first place.
Ella Lee contributed.