Biden wanted to testify at Hunter's trial, new book says
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Hunter Biden and his wife, Melissa Cohen Biden, head into the federal courthouse in Wilmington, Del., during his JUne 2024 trial on federal gun charges. Photog: Joe Lamberti/Bloomberg via Getty Images
This story is adapted from the new book "Original Sin: President Biden's Decline, Its Cover-Up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again," by CNN's Jake Tapper and Axios' Alex Thompson.
Joe Biden repeatedly offered to testify in his son Hunter's trial on federal gun charges in Delaware last June, CNN's Jake Tapper and Axios' Alex Thompson report in their new book, "Original Sin."
Why it matters: The possibility of "a sitting president taking the witness stand in a case involving his own son," would have added to the media spectacle that the trial became, Tapper and Thompson write.
- It also shows how Hunter's legal troubles consumed the Biden White House, distracting and draining the president as he entered the summer stretch of his 2024 re-election campaign against Donald Trump.
- "The weekend before the trial began, Biden again offered to testify or come to court, despite his packed schedule," which included several international trips, the authors report.
- Hunter Biden ultimately was found guilty on all charges. After the election, the president pardoned his son, in a stark reversal from his previous promises not to.
Flashback: Before leaving on a trip for France early last June, Biden publicly insisted that he wouldn't be commenting on his son's trial.
- But privately, he "repeatedly brought up the idea" of testifying on his behalf, according to the book, which was released today.
- Biden had testimony that could have been helpful to the defense about Hunter's state of mind in October 2018, when he illegally purchased and possessed a firearm while using a narcotic. But Hunter's lawyers ultimately concluded that the move was too risky and could backfire.
- On June 3, days before the trial began, Biden issued a rare statement, saying that "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."
Zoom out: For Biden, June 2024 was the cruelest month.
- Besides his son's legal troubles, he had back-to-back foreign trips, followed by a Los Angeles fundraiser, hosted by George Clooney and Julia Roberts. At the fundraiser he appeared not to recognize Clooney — whom he'd known for two decades, according to an excerpt of the book in The New Yorker.
- Then Biden had about a week of debate prep before his fateful showdown with Trump on June 27. Biden later claimed his poor performance was the result of jet lag and a "bad cold." But the debate set off alarms in the Democratic Party that led to Biden's withdrawal from the presidential race three weeks later.
Zoom in: Hunter's trial took an enormous toll on the first family, including Jill Biden, who attended the trial in person after flying back from France, where she'd joined the ceremonies marking the 80th anniversary of the Normandy invasion.
- The first lady also offered to testify, "but she had not witnessed much of Hunter's downturn [into addiction] in 2018; her testimony would be less useful," Tapper and Thompson write.
Hunter's daughter Naomi did testify at the trial.
- As Thompson reported for Axios then, "she clearly wanted to help her father convince jurors that he wasn't taking drugs when he bought a gun in 2018 and signed a federal form swearing he wasn't a drug user."
- But "probing questions and old text messages presented by the prosecution ... made the president's son look more like an erratic dad than a good father who was getting sober in the week after he bought the gun."
What they're saying: A Biden spokesperson declined to comment.
