Hunter Biden wipes away tears as daughter Naomi testifies at gun trial about visiting him at rehab: ‘I was so proud of him’
WILMINGTON, Del. — First son Hunter Biden could be seen wiping away tears Friday as his eldest daughter Naomi testified in his defense during his federal gun trial — the defendant’s first real display of emotion during proceedings.
Naomi — one of Hunter’s three daughters with ex-wife Kathleen Buhle — recounted to jurors that she had visited her dad in Los Angeles while he was at The View rehab center in August 2018 and introduced him to her then-boyfriend, Peter Neal.
“I visited him with my boyfriend, who is now my husband,” Naomi said. “I hadn’t seen my dad in a really long time and I know he was in a rehab facility there.”
“We met him at a coffee shop, had lunch with him and met his sober coach,” she said.
Naomi needed to be reminded the name of the rehab facility, located in Tinseltown’s tony Brentwood section.
“Yeah, it was, sorry. I’m nervous,” she explained.
“He seemed like the clearest I had seen him since my uncle [Beau Biden] died [in May 2015],” Naomi recalled.
“He seemed really great. I told him I was so proud of him and so proud to be able to introduce Peter to him,” Naomi said, as Hunter’s eyes welled up.
Naomi — the third defense witness of Friday’s proceedings — went on to recount texting her dad on Oct. 17, 18, and 19, days after Hunter bought the .38-caliber revolver at the center of the federal case against him.
The first granddaughter said she had been trying to meet up with Hunter in Manhattan to swap cars after borrowing his pickup to help Neal move into her apartment.
“He was coming to New York to see me,” Naomi testified. “And he needed the truck back. He drove my pop’s Cadillac. He seemed great. He seemed hopeful.”
Naomi said she thought her dad was in a similar place to when she saw him in rehab, but a series of texts between the two read aloud by prosecutor Leo Wise indicated erratic behavior on Hunter’s part.
First, Naomi received messages from her dad at 11:40 p.m. on Oct. 17 saying: “Are you up? Please call me.”
Hunter then sent Naomi another message at 2 a.m. on Oct. 18 saying: “Where are the keys for the truck and can Peter bring the keys to 57th and 5th and I’ll trade cars with him?”
“Do you know what your father was doing at 2 a.m. and why he was asking for the car then?” asked Wise during cross-examination.
“No,” Naomi answered.
Wise then read out Naomi’s response to her dad: “‘Right now?'”
The Bidens ultimately decided to meet the afternoon of the 18th.
But Hunter, now 54, flaked on his daughter — who was in her second year of law school at Columbia University at the time — when they were supposed to swap cars, according to their messages.
Naomi asked her dad in a text if she wasn’t going to be able to see him that afternoon and when he said he couldn’t meet her, she sent him a sad-face emoji.
“I’m really sad, dad,” Wise read Naomi’s text to Hunter. “I can’t take this. I don’t know what to say. I just miss you so much. And want to hang out with you.”
Wise asked Naomi to confirm sending that text.
As she answered, “yes,” the witnesses’ voice broke with emotion.
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In response, according to Wise, Hunter said: “I’m sorry I’ve been so unreachable, it’s not fair to you.”
Wise then asked Naomi if she knew that Hunter had someone named Frankie meet him in his hotel room and if she knew her father had given Frankie an access code to his Wells Fargo bank account.
“No,” she said, her voice cracking.
Hunter’s ex-girlfriend Zoe Kestan previously testified that she saw Hunter buy a “ping-pong ball”-size amount of crack from a dealer named Frankie at the Four Seasons hotel in the winter of 2018.
The Biden scion is accused of purchasing the Colt Cobra firearm on Oct. 12, 2018, after illegally lying about his addiction to crack cocaine. While prosecutors don’t need to prove Hunter was high that day, they do need to show jurors he was using around that time.
Wise asked Naomi when she discovered her father had a drug dependency problem.
“I knew that he was struggling with addiction,” Naomi said without recalling an exact date. “I can’t recall but after my uncle died things got bad.”
Naomi — who testified she never did drugs herself — said that she never saw her father use in front of her and she admitted she may not have been able to tell when he was high.
Earlier, defense attorney Abbe Lowell asked Naomi if she saw any drug paraphernalia or drug residue in the Ford, to which she said, “No, it was in good condition.”
Hunter’s ex-flame and Beau’s widow Hallie Biden testified that when she found his revolver in his pickup outside her Wilmington home on Oct. 23 — five days after Naomi had the car — she saw drug paraphernalia and drug remnants in the car.
She also said when she saw Hunter before going into the car, he looked ragged and as if he hadn’t slept in days.
After she was excused, Naomi appeared to wipe her eyes with her hand and hugged her father on the way out of the courtroom as proceedings broke for lunch.
Hunter also walked out holding hands with his stepmom, first lady Jill Biden.
