Hunter Biden, son of U.S. President Joe Biden, and his wife Melissa Cohen Biden arrive at the federal court for his trial on criminal gun charges, in Wilmington, Delaware, U.S., June 10, 2024.Â
Hannah Beier | Reuters
This is developing news and will be updated throughout the day.
The criminal gun trial of Hunter Biden resumed Monday morning with his lawyers revealing that the son of President Joe Biden will not testify in Wilmington, Delaware, federal court.
The decision sets the stage for closing arguments to begin after jurors return at 9 a.m. ET. The jury could begin deliberating Biden’s fate by afternoon.
Biden is charged with three crimes related to possessing a handgun while being a drug user.
Biden’s lawyer Abbe Lowell effectively said he would not take the witness stand during a morning hearing with Judge Maryellen Noreika on proposed jury instructions.
Lowell told Noreika to leave the phrase “did not testify” — referring to Biden — in those instructions.
Noreika denied a request by the defense to change the proposed jury instructions.
Biden’s lawyers wanted Noreika to tell jurors that “Mr. Biden’s response to the charges is that he never ‘knowingly’ either possessed a gun when he thought of himself as a user of drugs or addicted to them and he did not ‘knowingly’ lie on a form that asked him ‘are you’ a user or addict because he did not believe he was either a drug user or addict at the time.”
But the judge said that was an “argument,” and not “appropriate” for her to tell the jury
The trial resumes as former President Donald Trump is expected to have a virtual interview with a New York probation official on Monday, in preparation for his sentencing next month in a criminal hush money case in Manhattan Supreme Court.
Trump was convicted last month of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records related to a payoff to porn star Stormy Daniels shortly before the 2016 election.
The Republican is set to face Hunter Biden’s father in November’s presidential election.
President Biden said last week that he will not pardon his son if Hunter Biden is convicted in the case, one of two criminal cases the younger Biden faces.
Hunter Biden is scheduled to go on trial later this year in Los Angeles federal court on criminal tax charges.