One by one, the women came before the court: his wife. his ex-wife. his daughter. his sister-in-law who’d become his ex-lover through a haze of tragedy and drug abuse.
As they entered the courtroom, they squinted, mindful of the many strangers watching them, people worried they might break down in tears or say the wrong thing.
Hunter Biden is on trial in a criminal trial and facing gun charges, but the courtroom scenes have forced the Biden women into an uncomfortable spotlight.
In families, public life often revolved around men. The women called to testify had, at various times, tried to support and protect the men who were troubled husbands, fathers and sons whose destructive drug histories continue to haunt them. The women who didn’t testify sat in the courtroom, playing the roles of caregivers and watchdogs.
The pain of this responsibility was visible on the face of Hunter Biden’s eldest daughter, Naomi Biden Neal, who testified on his behalf on Friday.
“He looked great,” a tense-spoken Biden-Neal, dressed in black and with his hair pulled back, said in court Friday. “He looked hopeful.”
Biden Neal, 30, was talking about when her father’s life began to spiral back down into drug addiction in October 2018. That month, Hunter Biden bought a gun and filled out federal paperwork certifying he was drug-free — decisions that are at the heart of prosecutors’ case against him.
Biden Neal had to reread painful text messages in which she pleaded with her father for time.
“Dad, I am so sorry. I can’t take it anymore,” his daughter wrote to him on Oct. 18. The two had tried multiple times to arrange a time to meet but were unsuccessful. During a particularly scathing cross-examination on Friday, prosecutors suggested Biden had ignored his daughter’s messages and was distracted by contacts with drug dealers.
“I don’t know what to say. I just miss you. I just want to spend time with you,” Biden-Neal wrote, adding a disgruntled face emoji.
Her father appeared to be fighting back tears as she spoke, and when she finished her testimony Biden Neal crossed the courtroom and gave her father a long embrace.
Addiction is a hellish reality for many American families, and the details of this trial — the frantic text messages, the sickening anxiety and the fear — will be familiar to anyone who has seen it up close.
But the backdrop to this personal drama is unusual: While the women of the family were in court this week dealing with the aftermath of Hunter Biden’s selection, his father, President Biden, was visiting France to honor the service of World War II veterans.
Other complex dynamics were also on display. Hallie Biden, who was married to the president’s eldest son, Beau Biden, was called by prosecutors to recount a period in her life she called a “horrible experience.” She bonded with Hunter Biden over the tragedy of her husband’s death in 2015. Eventually, the two began dating and using crack cocaine.
In court on Thursday, Hallie Biden said she often lost contact with Biden over the course of weeks, only for an exhausted Biden to emerge late at night looking for a place to sleep.
“It was a typical pattern,” she said.
Kathleen Buehl, who was married to Hunter Biden for 24 years and has three children with him, including Naomi Biden Neal, was called by prosecutors to speak about how addiction had harmed her life and marriage.
While she reflected on the years, including in 2003 and 2012, when she supported her husband as he sought treatment for alcoholism, she spoke more solemnly about the period since 2015, when the life she knew fell apart due to his cocaine addiction and subsequent revelations of his infidelity.
The spectacle has also been graced by the presence of U.S. first lady Jill Biden, whose retinue this week has included Secret Service agents and Anthony Bernal, a senior adviser to the Bidens. She left a high-profile trip to France accompanied by Biden on Thursday, returning to the courthouse before resuming her journey on Saturday.
In court on Friday, the first lady was joined by the president’s sister, Valerie Biden Owens, and Melissa Cohen Biden, whom Hunter Biden married in 2019. Hunter has credited Cohen with keeping him sober, and he has been at his side all week as his staunchest defender. On Tuesday, Cohen Biden called Ziegler a “Nazi” after he encountered Garrett Ziegler, a troll who was trying to spread Hunter Biden’s laptop online after it was left in a repair shop.
Other women in her family remember aspects of him that Biden Cohen did not know, and they all share a history they tried and failed to escape.
The president’s daughter, Ashley Biden, cried quietly. Other women in the family sat in expressionless silence as jurors were selected, testimony was given and snippets of Hunter Biden’s memoir were read by his author for the world to hear, and for them to hear.
Glenn Thrash He contributed from Wilmington, Delaware.
