Hunter Biden's wife shakes her head as his laptop is revealed at trial

Hunter Biden's gun trial was shown his infamous laptop and saw photos, videos and text messages from when he was in the depths of his addiction to crack cocaine during a dramatic day in court. Melissa Cohen, the wife of the president's son, shook her head as Prosecutor Derek Hines took the Macbook Pro 13 from a plastic sleeve, walked it across the courtroom and held it up to the jury.

The revelation came on a second day of the trial that heard Hunter 'smoked crack every 15 minutes' and went into details into his life of 'debauchery'. Hines' first witness FBI agent Erika Jensen confirmed it belonged to Hunter in an admission that flew in the face of many who tried to discredit its contents as Russian disinformation. He then showed the court evidence taken from the 'Laptop from Hell' - including pictures of text messages where Hunter refers to himself as an ‘addict’ and his conversations with suspected drug dealers.

There was also a message where he describes ‘sleeping on a car smoking crack’ two days after buying the Colt Cobra Revolver at the center of the case. The 12 jurors also saw video of a shirtless Hunter smoking a pipe and weighing what appeared to be crack on digital scales. Prosecutors have to prove that Hunter, 54, intentionally lied about his drug addiction when he bought the gun on October 12, 2018.

It was a fraught and emotional morning for Melissa – who started crying when Hunter’s attorney Abbe Lowell referred to Hunter beginning his whirlwind romance with her in the spring of 2019, in his opening statement to the jury. During a break in the proceedings she also lashed out at Donald Trump White House aide Garrett Ziegler and called him a 'Nazi piece of s***'.

In the morning, both the prosecution and defense give their opening statements to the jury, followed by testimony from FBI Special Jensen, who investigated Hunter’s gun crimes. Prosecutor Hines went first and took a little over 20 minutes for his opening statement. He told the jury that ‘no one is above the law’, that it ‘applies equally to all people’, and that prosecutions of defendants are about ‘the choices they made not the people they are’. ‘We’re here because he chose to lie,’ Hines said, referring to Hunter’s gun purchase form in which he claimed he was not an addict. ‘No one is allowed to lie on a federal form like that, not even Hunter Biden .’

Hoping to portray a slam-dunk case, Hines told the jury they will hear from the salesman at StarQuest Shooters in Wilmington, Delaware who sold Hunter the gun and saw him fill out the form. He said Hunter ‘admitted in his own words’ that he was an addict when he bought the gun. Hines explained that the government needs to prove Hunter knew he was an addict or drug abuser when he bought the gun in order to achieve three guilty verdicts, but said that the First Son Hunter ‘admitted in his own words’ to it. ‘He was addicted to crack before, during, and after’ the gun incident, Hines said.

The prosecutor told the jury they will be shown video evidence of Hallie (pictured), Hunter’s then-lover and brother’s widow, dumping his gun in the trash at Janssens Supermarket in Wilmington on October 23, 2018 after she found the gun in Hunter’s truck. He and his co-prosecutor Leo Wise were flanked by several aides at the government’s table, and their boss, Special Counsel David Weiss, sat in the public benches watching.

After Hines concluded his opening statement, Melissa was unable to contain herself and mouthed something angrily but silently at his back, from her seat next to Jill Biden. Later in the morning, the jury were played extensive excerpts from the audio book of Hunter’s memoir, narrated by the First Son himself, detailing his sordid crack cocaine-fueled exploits in 2016 through 2019, and his first hit of the drug in the 1990s. One revelation came from Hunter’s hotshot lawyer Abe Lowell, who said that Hunter drove his father Joe Biden’s black Cadillac SUV to the gun store in October 2018 when he bought the gun, over which he is now charged.

The lawyer also raised eyebrows in the courtroom when he said that a leather pouch that police found containing both Hunter’s gun and cocaine residue in 2018 was actually used by Hunter’s daughters in New York the days before the gun incident. The controversial claim distanced Hunter from the drugs found on the pouch – but potentially put his kids in the frame. Lowell also indicated that Hunter’s uncle, Jim Biden, will testify during the trial about Hunter’s efforts to get sober.

Ashley Biden (pictured), Hunter's half-sister, was also ashen-faced and appeared on the verge of tears through much of the morning’s proceedings. At one point, when the jury was played excerpts of the audio book of Hunter’s memoir describing his drug-fueled car crash he had on highway I-10 in 2016, Jill put her arm around her daughter. ‘We will show you overwhelming evidence he knew he was a drug user and drug addict,’ Hines told the jury, pointing out that during 2018 Hunter repeatedly checked himself into rehab. ‘These attempts reflected he understood and knew he had an addiction.’

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