Hallie Biden, the sister-in-law and former lover of Hunter Biden, revealed in federal court on Thursday morning that she wasn't specifically looking for a gun when she found a revolver in Biden's truck in October, 2018; a gun she says she later threw into a trash dumpster because she was afraid her kids would find it. Instead, she was planning on cleaning out his truck to "help him start anew and deal with stuff."

She said he arrived at her house on the morning of Oct. 23. “I didn’t know where he was and I’d been trying to reach him for weeks,” she said. “He was tired, exhausted, looked like he hadn’t slept,” she said of Hunter’s condition that morning.

Hallie says he quickly went to bed when he arrived at her house. At that point, Hallie testified, she went to clean up his car. “Hoping we could help him start anew and deal with stuff,” she said of her motive to search the car.

In the car, Hallie testified she found “trash, clothes, some remnants of crack,” and “paraphernalia.” Wise then asked if that was it. “Oh, and the gun, obviously,” Hallie said.

Hallie Biden's statement doesn't prove that Hunter Biden was abusing drugs when he purchased the gun earlier that month, or that he was using crack cocaine after he took possession of the revolver, but it's yet another bit of evidence that at least suggests Biden wasn't clean and sober during the time period in question. 

Hallie Biden is testifying under a grant of immunity from prosecutors, which means she can testify about her own unlawful drug use without facing criminal charges. In another explosive exchange, she revealed that it was Hunter who got her hooked on crack for a period of time. 

Prosecutor Leo Wise asked her whether she was using drugs in the summer of 2018, after she traveled to Los Angeles to visit Hunter Biden at the Roosevelt Hotel.

“Yes, I was,” she replied. 

Asked by Wise about what types of drugs, she said, “crack cocaine.”

Wise asked “Who had introduced you” to it?

“Hunter did,” she replied. “It was a terrible experience that I went through and I’m embarrassed and I’m ashamed of that period of my life.”

Hallie Biden maintains that she had been drug-free for about two months when Biden purchased the revolver from a gun store. She had no idea that Hunter Biden had bought a firearm until she found it in the truck's center console. 

Hallie says that when she found the gun and ammo, she “panicked” and “wanted to get rid of them.”  “I didn’t want him to hurt himself or my kids to find it and hurt themselves,” she said. She said she considered hiding the gun but didn’t because she thought one of her kids might find it in the house. 

"I was afraid to, kind of, touch it,” she said, as to why she placed the gun and ammo inside Hunter’s leather pouch. Initially, she had tried to put the gun in a shopping bag, but it didn’t quite fit and a part was sticking out. She then looked around the car for something else to put the gun in, found the leather pouch, put the gun and ammo in there and then placed the pouch back inside the shopping bag. 

Wise introduced the pouch into evidence and displayed it for the jury. He also introduced surveillance camera video of Hallie throwing away the gun at the grocery store up the street from her house. 

Hallie said she couldn’t remember exactly what she did after throwing away the bag with the gun inside. “I was just so flustered from the whole thing,” she testified. “I realize it was a stupid idea now, but I was just panicking.”

Defense attorney Abbe Lowell did get Hallie Biden to state that she did not see Hunter Biden using drugs after he returned to Delaware from California in early October, 2018, though she did confirm to prosecutors that he had sent her several texts in the days after the gun was purchased that indicated he was using crack cocaine. One text, sent the day after the gun was purchased, referred to waiting for "a dealer", while another sent two days after he bought the revolver stated he was "sleeping on a car smoking crack." 

Under questioning by Lowell, Hallie Biden admitted that she had no direct evidence that Hunter was telling the truth when he sent the texts.

She testified that Hunter Biden would often tell her things that were untrue, such as where he was.

Lowell asked about her Oct. 13 text to Hunter Biden when she asked, “Why won’t you answer my calls? Where are you? Are you with someone?,” to which he responded that he was waiting for a dealer near a 7-Eleven.

Lowell asked if she knew for sure that he was at that 7-Eleven. “I do not,” she said.

Then Lowell asked about the texts where Hunter Biden said he was sleeping on a car smoking crack. 

“You have no idea whether he was just saying that or whether he was actually there?” asked Lowell.

“Correct,” she said.

While Lowell is hoping to introduce an element of doubt in the minds of jurors regarding the texts, I don't know how successful that will be. I know I mentioned this yesterday, but if Hunter was really trying to avoid seeing Hallie Biden, why would he make up a lie about waiting for a drug dealer and smoking crack unless he thought those excuses would be believable? Lowell has harped on the unsubstantiated nature of the texts throughout the trial, but the content of the texts aren't as easily explained away. 

On the other hand, prosecutors have not been able to produce any direct evidence that Biden was abusing drugs when he purchased the firearm, instead relying on a mountain of circumstantial evidence that points to his continued drug use, including his own memoir. In Beautiful Things, Biden said he was clean for about two weeks after leaving a California rehab, and when he returned to the East Coast in early October he did so in the hopes of "getting clean", not "staying clean." 

It's too early to tell if that account, combined with the texts and physical evidence of cocaine residue on the pouch where the gun was stored as well as Hallie Biden's contention that she found crack residue in Hunter Biden's truck along with the gun, will be enough to persuade a jury beyond a reasonable doubt that Hunter Biden lied on the background check form by attesting he was not an unlawful user of drugs or addicted to narcotics. There's an awful lot of evidence pointing in that direction, but so far prosecutors have not been able to produce (no pun intended) a smoking gun.