WILMINGTON, Del. (news agencies) — In a span of less than 48 hours this past week, first lady Jill Biden shuttled from a Normandy ceremony marking the 80th anniversary of the D-Day invasion in France to the front row of a Delaware courtroom, where Hunter Biden is on trial in a gun case, and then back to Paris for an elaborate state visit at Élysée Palace.
“Here we are again,” the first lady said with a laugh as she and President Joe Biden were greeted by French President Emanuel Macron and his wife, Brigette, at the palace on Saturday, the light comment an oblique nod to her transatlantic commute.
It was a manifestation of the great lengths to which the Biden family has gone to support Hunter Biden as he stands trial in Wilmington, Delaware, accused of lying on a federal gun purchase form when he said he did not have a drug problem. Jill Biden has been a regular presence in the courtroom, buttressed by a rotating cast of other family members.
“The back and forth, the push and pull, of family responsibilities, of first lady duties, of her career, of the campaign — that’s just who she is,” said Elizabeth Alexander, the first lady’s communications director.
Every family wrestles with personal challenges, and politicians are often left to navigate those dynamics in public. But the very expansive airing in court of tawdry details surrounding Hunter Biden’s addiction – in the glare of an election year — is of an order of greater magnitude. And the president’s family has shown a determination to ensure Hunter Biden does not weather it alone.
The trial resumes Monday. Hunter Biden has pleaded not guilty to the charges, but he does not deny a drug problem. His memoir, “Beautiful Things,” is all about hitting bottom after his brother Beau’s death in 2015 from cancer. But his lawyers say he did not consider himself to be an “addict” at the time he filled out the gun purchase form in 2018 to buy a revolver.
Joe Biden has steered clear of the courtroom and said little about the case, wary of creating an impression of interfering in a criminal matter brought by his own Justice Department. But the president has long walked the line between public servant and father.
At just 30, the Democrat was sworn in as Delaware’s junior senator from a hospital room where his young sons were recuperating from a car accident that killed his wife and baby daughter.
In grainy black-and-white newsreels, Biden can been seen holding 3-year-old Hunter as the new senator takes the oath and 4-year-old Beau watches from a hospital bed. Joe Biden pledged then that if there was ever a conflict between “my being a good father and being a good senator,” he would resign.
The president did put out a brief written statement as Hunter Biden’s trial began.
“As the president, I don’t and won’t comment on pending federal cases, but as a dad, I have boundless love for my son, confidence in him, and respect for his strength,” he said. “Our family has been through a lot together, and Jill and I are going to continue to be there for Hunter and our family with our love and support.”
The case followed him to Normandy nonetheless, where Biden was asked in an ABC interview whether he thought his son would get a fair trial and whether the president would rule out pardoning his son if there was a guilty verdict.
Biden answered with a terse “yes” on both matters.
Over the trial’s first week, Jill Biden was in court four days out of five, missing only Thursday due to the D-Day events. Others who have taken seats in the courtroom at various points are Hunter’s sister Ashley, aunts Bonny Jacobs and Valerie Owens and his wife, Melissa Cohen Biden.
The first lady has leaned over the court railing to embrace Hunter, who has called her mom since she married Joe Biden in 1977. She has walked hand in hand with him out of the courtroom. She has listened to hours of testimony.
Hunter has not made it easy for his family, and the evidence in the case has been a highly personal tour of his mistakes and drug use, some kind of nightmare version of “This is Your Life.”
Jurors have listened to hours of testimony from his ex-wife, a former girlfriend and his brother’s widow, who between them painted a picture of strip club trips, infidelity, habitual crack use and their failed efforts to help him get clean. Jurors saw images of the president’s son bare-chested and disheveled in a filthy room and half-naked holding crack pipes. And they watched a video of his crack cocaine being weighed on a scale.
Federal prosecutors have argued the evidence was necessary to prove to jurors that Hunter Biden, 54, was in the throes of addiction when he bought the gun and therefore lied when he checked “no” on the form that asked whether he was “an unlawful user of, or addicted to” drugs.
On Friday, his eldest daughter, Naomi, 30, testified for the defense, telling jurors a hopeful story about how her father seemed to be getting better around the time of the gun purchase.
“I told him I was so proud of him,” she said softly.
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