See How They Run Like Pigs From a Gun: Hunter Biden's Delaware Trial - Day 5

We're in the home stretch, friends. The prosecution in Hunter Biden's trial on federal gun charges in Delaware has rested, and the defense is on the brink of it — they're going to noodle on whether to call Hunter himself to the stand over the weekend. If they do, the prosecution may have some added rebuttal, but it looks for all the world like the case will be handed to the jury on Tuesday at the latest. 

Once again, Townhall's Mia Cathell was in the courtroom, bringing us the blow-by-blow (pardon the expression).

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Thursday's proceedings ended with the "Who's on First?" comedy routine involving defense attorney Abbe Lowell's cross-examination of Delaware State Police Lt. Miller Greer and Edward "Ed" Banner, the 80-year-old man who retrieved the gun in question from a dumpster after Hunter's sister-in-law/former lover Hallie Biden hurriedly ditched it there. I'll let Mia's recounting of their exchange do the talking here because I couldn't hope to do it justice (and we're all about justice): 

According to Greer's recounting of events, the retiree had stashed Hunter's gun upstairs in his old General Motors lunchbox, supposedly stuffing it in a pair of rolled-up socks.

Latching on to this detail, Lowell began rapid-firing questions at Greer: how many socks were there, where were these socks placed, how were the socks folded, what does sock-rolling entail, and so on.

Tongue-in-cheek spectators observing from the overflow room started shouting out some hard-hitting follow-up questions:

"What color were they?!"

"Were they tube socks?!"

"Please say they were orthopedic!"

The people want answers, Lowell.

The man supposed to provide those answers shuffled out: Banner himself.

A Pixar character brought to life, the bespectacled Banner — reminiscent of the old man from the movie "Up" — struggled to lower himself into the witness chair. The court equipped him with a pair of headphones connected to the courtroom's audio system, but both parties decided to just crouch down next to the stand so Banner could hear better.

"I don't know nothing about no socks," the 80-year-old Navy veteran emphatically declared when Lowell pressed him on the sock-stashing quandary and hoped to catch any inconsistencies in his statements.

Lowell's gotcha-moment was soiled by the optics of a Washington lawyer squeezing a hard-of-hearing senior citizen, who rummages through trash receptacles for recyclables to earn a few cents off of his findings. "I got a nick' a piece for them," Banner told the court, but now he only pockets as much as 75 cents a pound these days. Times are tough in this economy, "especially now with gas prices!" Banner griped.

It may not be the best defense strategy to test the failing memory of an octogenarian, though we have one in the White House.

Friday morning began with the prosecution calling forensic chemist Dr. Jason Brewer to testify as to his analysis of the "white powdery substance" found on the brown leather pouch in which the gun was wrapped.

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Brewer was followed by DEA Supervisory Special Agent Joshua Romig, who testified about drug terminology, measurements, and pricing. 

The defense attempted to poke holes in the Brewer testimony regarding chain of custody of the pouch and as to Romig by questioning whether he'd ever investigated or apprehended the drug dealers discussed in Hunter's texts. More from Mia on how well that went: 

Lowell says the fall of 2019 (between August and November) is devoid of drug references.

“With the exception of the October texts when he says he’s smoking crack,” Romig snaps back, referring to the message where Hunter says he’s “smoking crack on a car” when he was in possession of the gun.

With that, the prosecution rested.

The defense called StarQuest Shooters employee Jason Turner to testify. Turner is the one who ran the background check on Hunter. It does not appear that his testimony went all that well for the defense: 

Turner corroborates Cleveland previous testimony where he explains why the store uses different colored ink on the forms.

“You’re not understanding how gun shop life is,” Turner later retorts when Lowell tries to narrow down the timeline between when the background check was run [6:37 p.m.] and the sale [6:53 p.m.], a 16-minute time period. 

“I put on my ritual robes and sat in a marble room. What do you want me to say!?” Turner exclaims. “I write slow. There’s your 16 minutes.” 

Here's where I don my (recovering) litigator's hat and make the following observation: 

The defense subpoenaed Turner to testify. If Hunter's team was competent and actively attempting to mount a defense, they would have spoken to Turner prior to the trial and learned from him why there were different colors of ink used on different parts of the form instead of trying to "gotcha" him on the stand and falling flat. You never ask a witness on the stand a question you don't already know the answer to — and sure as shootin' (no pun intended) not a witness you hauled into court yourself.

The defense also called Ron Palmieri, the owner of StarQuest Shooters, but it doesn't appear that he had much to offer in terms of a lifeline. 

Lowell pulls up a photo copy of Hunter’s passport. Lowell says Turner brought the passport to Paliemere asking if that was an acceptable form of identification. Palimere recalls saying “sure,” not thinking much of it.

Lowell then presses Palimere to see if he wanted to “hurry” the sale. Palimere says he just wanted to ensure Hunter wasn’t waiting around forever on the sales floor. 

The last witness of the day was Naomi Biden, Hunter's eldest daughter (and one whom he — and his father — acknowledge).

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It would appear that the purpose of Naomi's testimony was to establish that Hunter did, in fact, have sober moments, though, on cross-examination, she was forced to acknowledge things weren't great during the time period in question. 

Wise cross-examines Naomi.

Wise gives Naomi a 20-page document containing her texts with Hunter in order to jog her memory. 

On October 17, 2018, at 2:00 a.m., Hunter texted Naomi to switch cars. Wise wonders what Hunter was doing in the dead of night. Naomi says she doesn’t know. 

Wise reviews the remaining messages where Hunter claims he is “unreachable” after much back-and-forth.

Naomi expresses dismay at Hunter’s absence with a frowny face, adding how much she misses him and just wants to spend time with her dad. 

Wise asks Naomi if she was aware of what Hunter was up to at the time: meeting a “Frankie” at the hotel and sending him an access code to get into his Wells Fargo account.

“After my uncle died, things got bad,” Naomi says. 

There was some thought that the defense might call Hunter's uncle, James Biden, and he apparently was present at court Friday in case they did. But ultimately, they opted to pass. As noted above, there is still some question as to whether they'll put Hunter on the stand on Monday. 

The parties are set to have their final instruction conference with the court at 8:15 am on Monday, so as soon as the defense rests (and assuming there's little to no rebuttal evidence from the prosecution), the jurors will be instructed, and the parties will give their closing arguments. (As this trial is not in New York, the prosecution will argue first, then the defense, then the prosecution will have a chance at rebuttal.) The way this one has breezed along, it may well be submitted to the jury on Monday. Stay tuned!