Just Ask Mookie: Hunter Biden Has No Defense Other Than Nullification
By: Jonathan Turley | June 6, 2024
Read more at https://jonathanturley.org/2024/06/06/just-ask-mookie-hunter-biden-has-no-defense-other-than-nullification/
Below is my column in the New York Post on the first day of testimony in the trial of Hunter Biden. Every claim of the defense seemed to collapse in the first two days of the trial. The defense argued that Hunter did not check the box on the gun form, so the prosecutors called the employee who watched him fill out the form. It claimed he was not using drugs at the time, so the prosecutors read texts from the next day in which Hunter sought to buy crack and called a series of witnesses on his continual use of crack during the period. The defense previously claimed the laptop showed evidence of tampering, so the prosecutor called a FBI agent establishing that there is no evidence of tampering and that the laptop is authentic. The defense claimed that Hunter just wandered into the store and was pressured to buy a gun, so prosecutors called an employee who testified that Hunter came in specifically wanting to buy a gun. As previously discussed, the lack of a defense is becoming glaringly obvious as is the nullification strategy.
Here is the column:
On the first day of his trial, Hunter Biden spoke to the jury . . . against himself. The prosecutors in his Wilmington gun trial read long excerpts from Hunter’s book on his long addiction to drugs and his self-proclaimed “superpower — finding crack anytime, anywhere.”
Listening to himself was the President’s son, whose counsel had just suggested that Hunter may have had a brief moment where he was drinking as opposed to snorting or smoking.
Accordingly, defense counsel Abby Lowell suggested, Hunter did not “knowingly” deny that he was using drugs when he purchased a .38-caliber Colt Cobra revolver from the StarQuest Shooters and Survival Supply in Wilmington, Del. Somehow the argument is that — for a brief moment on October 12, 2018 — Hunter forgot that he was a superpowered junkie. The problem is that the next prosecution witness is likely to be, again, Hunter Biden.
The day after he bought the gun, Hunter was texting a guy named “Mookie” to score drugs behind a minor league baseball stadium. Mookie appears to have come through for Hunter since the next day (two days after denying that he used drugs), Hunter allegedly texted Hallie Biden that he was “waiting for a dealer named Mookie.”
Then, two days after the gun purchase, Hunter texted, “I was sleeping on a car smoking crack on 4th street and Rodney.” That corner appears less than a mile and half from the federal courthouse where Hunter is sitting. It is roughly five miles from the gun shop where he denied using drugs.
Hallie will also testify. She was the widow of Hunter’s deceased brother and started an intimate relationship with Hunter after Beau’s death. She was also allegedly doing crack. Yet, when Hallie saw the gun in the console of Hunter’s car, she had the presence of mind to realize he was an unstable addict. She took the gun and threw it into a dumpster behind a restaurant.
The brutal start of the hearing raises the question — again — of why Hunter decided to go to trial. There is no viable defense. The most that the defense can come up with is a claim that someone else may have completed the form, or that he had a moment of sobriety before heading off to meet Mookie.
In his book, Hunter describes an addiction that led him to smoke crack almost every 15 minutes. That would seem likely to come to mind when you are given a form asking, “Are you an unlawful user of, or addicted to, marijuana or any depressant, stimulant, narcotic drug, or any other controlled substance?”
Certainly his need for drugs was much on Hunter’s mind when he was texting Mookie.
Indeed, not long after the purchase, the Biden family held an intervention at their Delaware home to deal with Hunter’s raging addiction.
These defenses are about as convincing as saying that your client got locked into the bank vault after losing his way to the restroom . . . hours after the bank closed.
So why present unbelievable defenses in Wilmington? Because it is Wilmington. This is Biden’s hometown. The President maintains his residence in the city and remains the town’s favorite son.
As if the jury needed any reminder, First Lady Jill Biden sitting behind Hunter brings home that this is a Biden trial in Bidentown. The combination of sympathy for a reformed addict and identification with the Bidens could be enough for a jury nullification strategy. The defense is not asking the jury to consider the evidence. It is asking the jury to ignore it.
Every juror appeared to confirm knowing someone with a drug addiction, including siblings or other relatives. Given that panel, Hunter could well take the stand to describe his addiction and lack of clarity of thought.
Hunter’s book offers moving descriptions of his struggle with addiction and could sway some jurors, especially given the relatively minor criminal charges. Wilmington for Biden is the opposite of Manhattan for Trump. This is a town that overwhelmingly voted for Biden in 2016 and 2020. It is a great jury pool for the defense. Viewed through a nullification defense, it does not matter how absurd the actual defense is in the case.
It is merely a pretense. Whether it is sympathy for a drug addict or a Biden, the defense clearly hopes that the jury will look beyond the evidence and the crime in this case.
What Did You Say? 
You must be logged in to post a comment.