Mia Cathell Profile picture
Investigative reporter @Townhallcom mia.cathell@townhall.com | former American News editor @TPostMillennial | Boston University '21 | Pronounced kuh-THELL

Jun 10, 18 tweets

A mega-thread of all the evidence admitted thus far in the Hunter Biden gun trial:

1/🧵

On October 12, 2018, Hunter Biden walked into StarQuest Shooters & Survival Supply, a federally licensed firearms dealer in Wilmington, Delaware, and answered "No" to Question 11.e on ATF Form 4473, a federal background check form, certifying that he was not doing drugs or addicted to a controlled substance, such as cocaine.

2/🧵

By attesting "No" to the drug user/addict question on the federal firearms paperwork, Hunter Biden was able to buy a Colt Cobra .38 Special revolver.

3/🧵

Hunter Biden also purchased 25 rounds of ammunition (two of which were missing when the gun was eventually recovered) for the revolver; a speedloader, an accessory that enables rapid reloading; and a semi-automatic air pistol.

4/🧵


Hunter's ex-lover Hallie Biden, the widow of Hunter's late brother Beau Biden and whom he introduced to crack cocaine, found the gun inside Hunter's "unlocked" Ford Raptor truck while cleaning out his car on October 23, 2018—11 days after the gun sale.

According to Hallie's testimony at trial, she additionally found "remnants of crack cocaine" and drug paraphernalia strewn about.

Here are Hallie's texts with Hunter when he realized she stole the gun.

5/🧵

Hallie Biden wrapped the gun in Hunter Biden's leather-brown pouch and dumped it at Janssen's Market.

Dr. Jason Brewer, a forensic chemist serving as an expert witness for the prosecution, conducted an analysis on the "off-white" powdery residue found on Hunter's brown-colored pouch. Brewer testified that it was traces of cocaine.

In late October 2018, Hallie complained about another one of Hunter's pouches containing "a stem" (a.k.a. crack pipe) left at her home's library next to her son, also named Hunter.

6/🧵

Here is the local grocery store's surveillance footage of Hallie Biden discarding the gun (she used a gift bag to mask its appearance), tossing it into a trash receptacle, and shopping around inside.

7/🧵

Then comes Edward Banner, an elderly dumpster-diver, rummaging through the shop's trash searching for recyclables. The 80-year-old Navy veteran stumbled upon Hunter's gun and took his discovery home with him. He reportedly stashed the revolver in a rolled-up sock tucked inside his General Motors lunch box until a Delaware State Police lieutenant ultimately recovered it.

8/🧵

Here's security video of Hallie Biden returning to the store and frantically looking for the gun that's now gone. At this point, she filed a police report, and Hunter was considered a victim of a firearm theft.

9/🧵

Authorities extracted a trove of data from Hunter Biden's infamous laptop he abandoned at The Mac Shop, a computer repair place owned by John Paul Mac Isaac, in April 2019.

Investigators also accessed his iCloud account via a search warrant issued to Apple Inc.

10/🧵

Pictures and videos of Hunter Biden smoking crack while nude were among the visuals prosecutors presented to the jury on a projector screen.

11/🧵


Hunter's ex-lover Zoe Kestan, an online "cam girl" who goes by the social media moniker "Weed Slut 420," testified against him. The two met when she performed a private session for him at New York's No. 1 strip club, the Vivid Cabaret.

12/🧵

Here they are bathing together. The prosecution showed pictures Hunter Biden's ex-girlfriend Zoe Kestan took of him smoking crack while the two were on a luxury spending spree, lighting up in high-end hotels across Los Angeles and New York.

On the witness stand, Kestan explained that "chore boy" (a scouring pad that filters a crack pipe) can be seen in the background as well as chopsticks, which are used to scrape out remaining residue.

13/🧵

"I can be sober, but I'll always be an addict," Hunter Biden texted Zoe Kestan.

The defense claims that this text sounds like a step in an Alcoholics Anonymous-type recovery program and not an admission of guilt.

Hunter's legal team is relying on the argument that he didn't "knowingly" lie on the federal form; he truly believed he was sober at the time of the gun sale.

14/🧵

The prosecution played portions of Hunter Biden's audiobook narration of his memoir, "Beautiful Things."

In court, Hunter heard himself admit he bought crack cocaine on the streets of the nation's capital and embarked on a cross-country "crack-fueled" odyssey, smoking crack "every hour of the day"—with his "around-the-clock use of crack" sometimes shortening to as often as "every fifteen minutes."

"I was doing nothing but drinking and drugging," Hunter wrote.

15/🧵

Among Hunter Biden's texts with drug dealers that the prosecution pulled for presentation to the jury, he told Hallie Biden that he was with "Bernard who hangs at 7/11" and waiting behind the Wilmington Blue Rocks stadium for a drug dealer named "Mookie" on October, 13, 2018, the day after he acquired the gun.

"I was sleeping on a car smoking crack" at a street corner in downtown Wilmington, Hunter texted the next day.

16/🧵

Bank statements show that more than $150,000 in cash was withdrawn from Hunter Biden's assortment of accounts over a three-month period around the time he purchased the gun in the fall of 2018.

Hunter's ex Zoe Kestan testified that "a good amount" of the cash was spent on buying drugs. She said that Hunter had her withdraw cash on his behalf and he'd remotely request a temporary PIN code that allowed anyone to access his account, even drug dealers themselves.

Some of the accounts accessed for cash include Owasco LLC and Owasco PC. In a separate California tax evasion case, Hunter is accused of using Owasco PC to evade taxes, specifically that he "subverted the payroll and tax withholding process of his own company" by withdrawing millions from the corporate account outside of the typical payroll and tax withholding process.

17/🧵

During rebuttal today, the prosecution entered into evidence Hunter Biden's mid-October 2018 texts with more presumed drug dealers named "Jr" and "Q."

His go-to meeting place was the 7-Eleven at the intersection of Greenhill and Lancaster Ave.

If that sounds familiar, Hunter had told Hallie Biden he was with "Bernard who hangs at 7/11," specifying the one on that street corner. Hunter's location data placed him there, too.

In "Chapter Ten: Lost Highway" of his memoir, Hunter described in detail how he arranged these drug pick-ups at "a 7-Eleven on such-and-such street" (Page 208).

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