Hunter Biden walked out of a Delaware federal courthouse Tuesday afternoon a guilty man. A jury found that he lied on gun-purchasing forms and illegally possessed a firearm for 11 days. He strode out between his wife Melissa Cohen-Biden and his mother, first lady Jill Biden, all three walking briskly but not frantically. And so, it was evident in the photos documenting their departure that they were holding hands. This gesture was not blurred; it was crystal clear. And it was purposeful. This family was carrying on. United.
“Jill and I will always be there for Hunter and the rest of our family with our love and support,” the president said in a statement. “Nothing will ever change that.”
As he left court, Hunter Biden looked the way he had for much of the trial. He was dressed in a white shirt and midnight suit with a matching tie, a small American flag pinned to his lapel. He also wore the sort of untroubled expression favored by people who’ve lived their lives in the public eye. It’s an expression that prevents prying observers from reading the nuances of their emotions; it’s an expression that keeps those emotions under guard.
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Inside the courtroom as the verdict was read, the defendant didn’t flinch, and it was he who seemed to be comforting those around him. Perhaps he knew that this verdict was likely. Perhaps he’d simply braced himself for the worst. His lawyer Abbe Lowell attempted to walk a narrow path, one that aimed to convince the jury that in the window of time surrounding his October 2018 purchase of the Colt revolver, Biden was not using illegal drugs; he was not addicted to crack. But in the popular understanding of addiction, we have been told: once an addict, always an addict. The question is whether a person is in recovery, whether they are able to quiet the demons even if they never fully exorcise them.
Unlike in so many trials, this jury was not faced with a blizzard of complicated paperwork. They didn’t have to tirelessly wade through testimony from countless expert witnesses drowning them in data. The facts of this case boiled down to a few all important questions on a simple form — one that bears too much of the responsibility for regulating who can purchase a weapon in our overly armed society. The narrative of this case was about sorrow and grief, squandered opportunity and potential, sickness and recovery, privileges transformed into burdens. But the essence of this case was defined by a sadness that too many families know well.
In remarks after the verdict, special counsel David Weiss argued that he was not litigating addiction, “This case was about the illegal choices [the] defendant made while in the throes of addiction.” Yet, that simple sentence holds all the dread and terrors of so many addicts and the people who love them. What kind of choices will a person make while in the grip of addiction? What thoughtless words might they utter? What reckless acts will they commit? What might they do that’s unforgivable? What might they do that makes the misery unbearable?
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In an interview with CNN, juror 10 spoke of sadness. That was the emotion that rose to the surface when Hallie Biden, the widow of Hunter’s brother Beau, testified about her romantic relationship with the defendant, and her own addiction. That was the feeling sparked when the defense called Naomi Biden to testify and she described her elation and despair as she witnessed her father’s successes and failures in rehab.
The case, said juror 10, “was very sad.”
Biden family members were ever present during the trial: on the witness stand and in the audience. Their daily commitment to Hunter was a reminder of the ways in which addiction threads its way from the addict to those around him. There are countless innocent bystanders, along with would-be saviors who fling themselves onto the battlefield as they try to snuff out an exploding grenade and are left wondering how they, too, became so damaged. The loyalty of friends and family was also a reminder of Hunter Biden’s immense privilege. So many addicts are on their own, without financial support, without a circle of confidantes. Without the president as their father. As Hunter Biden noted in his statement after the trial: “I am more grateful today for the love and support I experienced this last week from Melissa, my family, my friends, and my community than I am disappointed by the outcome.”
Still, one is left to marvel at how someone who seemed to have so much came to this end: guilty on all counts. What to make of such wasted bounty? It seems that even the most tightly woven safety net sometimes isn’t strong enough to break a compulsive fall.
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The time between the jury announcing it had reached a verdict and the moment that verdict was read in court was brief. The first lady, despite traveling to France alongside her husband to mark the 80th anniversary of D-Day, was still in the courtroom for much of the trial. But she was not present as the verdict was read; she arrived a few minutes afterward. Traffic might clear for the first lady. Secret Service agents can control the comings and goings of those who might seek to greet her. But the court did not wait for her before the jury’s judgment of her son was made public. The process rolled along.
“No one in this country is above the law,” said Weiss. The jury of six men and six women made this plain. Then Weiss added: “Hunter Biden should be no more accountable than any other citizen convicted of this same conduct.” In other words, the defendant should not serve as a repository for this divided country’s animus toward his father’s administration.
In interviews after the verdict, jurors have said that politics did not enter into their deliberations. They did not discuss the president. And the president has not weighed in on his son’s legal issues. Some jurors barely even recognized the first lady. Our divisive politics may have helped stiffen the prosecutorial legs of this case. But the weight of this trial, the heartbreak of it, was a unifying sadness. It’s the mournful lament of “what-ifs” that echoes across this country, a despair that tests the strength of even the most powerful safety nets.
