It’s not really about Hunter, of course.
i believe they meant “right now” as in the day you are signing this or possibly with in a brief time of signing this.
for example:
he signed the gun form on x day, and hadn’t used drugs in the last week plus.
I believe it’s this question from “ATF Form 4473” that he answered as “No”:
There is some wiggle room for the signer since the terms “user of” and “addicted to” aren’t clarified. As I mentioned, an addict will often be in complete denial that they are addicted. They’ll say they aren’t addicted, and I believe they actually believe that. However, I don’t really believe that they don’t consider themselves users. I think the defense should point out that the term is not defined, so it’s up to personal interpretation and not really enforceable. It would be like if a speed limit sign said “Not too fast” rather than “55MPH”. The form should have spelled out what is meant by “user of” and “addicted to” so it’s not up to personal interpretation.
and that is how you introduce reasonable doubt.
per cnn:
Court has resumed after a one-hour lunch break.
Thanks for posting that, @filmore! I was trying to find the exact wording but failing.
Grammatically, it’s a weird construction. “Unlawful” is an adjective that modifies the noun “user,” which itself is a person-noun. To agree with that is to agree that you’re unlawful, which is borderline nonsense.
They should have used the adverbial form “unlawfully” to refer to the verb “use”, as in, “Do you unlawfully use…” Or, preferably, “In the past thirty days, have you unlawfully used…”
I used cocaine yesterday, but I quit, so I’m not a user anymore, I’m an ex-user.
I’m also not addicted… see above.
A better question would be “Within the last 30 days, have you used blah or blah or blah?”
You know, it’s not just that this case would never have been undertaken had it not been Joe Biden’s son, but even if it was Cletus Hatfield McCoy who was under these charges, it would probably be pled out before noon between expired licenses cases. But instead we get entire new channels dedicated to the outcome.
Both are equally illegal under Federal law. If you are a regular Pot user, you can not buy a gun legally.
Where is the chain of evidence for the Laptop?
Re the laptop:
This is only a guess, because I don’t know what if any in limine motions were made in this case.
My pure speculation is that the laptop was the subject of such a motion by the defense in an effort to keep it out based on its questionable provenance.
The judge might have denied the motion and said something like, look, I can’t tell the prosecution how to run their case and so I’m going to allow them to offer the laptop. But of course you, the defendant, are free to question the legitimacy or credibility of any “proof” the prosecutors try to introduce that flows from it.
Hope this helps.
per cnn:
After a lunch break, Zoe Kestan, Hunter Biden’s ex-girlfriend, continued to testify about how she saw Hunter Biden use drugs at various places the two stayed.
Kestan told jurors that Biden said he would go to rehab but when he stopped answering her messages, she used her laptop to open his banking records and saw he had withdrawn cash far away from the rehab facility.
When she asked him about the rehab, Biden told her something along the lines of: “Don’t worry about it,” she testified.
At another time, Kestan testified that Biden had offered a “young woman who was homeless” to stay with him at a hotel.
Hunter Biden later left that hotel in a rush, according to Kestan, and asked her to clean up the hotel room.
Pictures of the hotel room were shown to the jury and Kestan pointed out several crack pipes, one of which was broken, as well as baking powder, spoons, bowls and chopsticks — all used for the drugs he was taking, she testified.
Prosecutors have now elicited direct eyewitness testimony of Hunter Biden doing drugs as late as mid-September 2018, several weeks before he bought the gun at the heart of this case.
Biden’s former girlfriend Zoe Kestan testified that she witnessed him smoking crack during one of their liaisons in Malibu, California, over several days in September 2018.
This could help the prosecutors because they need to prove Biden was using drugs around when he bought the gun in 2018.
The indictment says while buying the revolver in Delaware, Biden lied on a federal form, swearing that he was not using, and was not addicted to, any illegal drugs — even though he was struggling with crack cocaine addiction at the time of the purchase.
Kestan also testified that Biden also wrote in a text message, “I’ll always be an addict.”
Prosecutors have finished the direct examination of Zoe Kestan, Hunter Biden’s ex-girlfriend. Abbe Lowell is conducting the cross examination and asked about her communications with the special counsel’s office.
Kestan described her many contacts with prosecutors, including a 3-hour session as recently as Monday. She was first interviewed in January 2022, then testified to the grand jury in February 2022. She had a subsequent meeting with Weiss’ team in July 2022.
In the last few weeks, in the run-up to the trial, she had another 3 meetings with special counsel prosecutors, totaling approximately 6 hours.
This is not uncommon for a key government witness. But defense attorneys often highlight these extensive contacts between a witness and the prosecutors to suggest a coziness between the two.
Kestan also confirmed that Weiss’ team granted her immunity in exchange for her cooperation with her probe.
Prosecutors have called called Gordon Cleveland, the man who sold Hunter Biden a gun in October 2018, to the stand.
Zoe Kestan is finished testifying. Toward the end of her testimony, she said that she was not aware what Biden was doing in October 2018, the month he bought the gun.
rc: huh. well that’s not helpful to the prosecution.
So… A laptop that was in the possession of who the hell knows for a time period of who the hell knows.
And a book, published by the accused.
Sounds like crap to me.
If Hunter is found guilty and is not immediately sentence to death by lethal injection that afternoon, the MAGAts will have more fuel for their claim that our judicial system is corrupt and is biased against True Patriots.
per cnn:
The gun purchased by Hunter Biden in 2018 was shown to the jury Wednesday during the testimony of Gordon Cleveland, a former employee of the gun store.
Cleveland testified that Biden said he was “looking for a firearm.”
When asked if he wanted a semi-automatic gun or a revolver, Biden said he wanted a revolver, Cleveland said.
Prosecutor Derek Hines showed Cleveland a revolver sitting inside a box, which Cleveland confirmed was the gun he sold Biden.
Gordon Cleveland testified that he told Hunter Biden to “take your time” in filling out the required federal form before Hunter Biden bought a gun in 2018.
Cleveland said he always told people to take their time with the form because some people would fill it out incorrectly and mess up the sale.
The former gun store employee also said he watched Hunter Biden mark “no” on the question of whether he was a user of illegal drugs.
Not just that, but they’ll continue to bitch about the weaponization of the Biden DoJ, even though Biden has stayed out of the Hunter case.
per cnn:
Former gun shop employee Gordon Cleveland testified that Hunter Biden paid in cash for the gun he purchased in 2018.
Cleveland said that Biden told him to keep the change left over, but he decided to leave the extra money in an envelope at the store.
“I don’t keep tips,” Cleveland said.
Cleveland testified he stopped working at the store in 2021 due to health issues.
He is now being cross examined by defense attorney Abbe Lowell.
Is there any mention as to why Cleveland has such a detailed memory of this transaction? Does he remember all his sales with this level of detail? Or was it that he realized it was the president’s son politician Joe Biden’s son and so it stands out?
(ETA carrps comment)
Well, technically, at the time. he wasn’t the President’s son.
per cnn:
On cross-examination, Hunter Biden’s defense attorney Abbe Lowell pressed the man who sold Hunter Biden a gun in 2018 about how he saw him arrive at the store.
“Did you see through the wall?” Lowell asked.
The gun store employee, Gordon Cleveland, said no, he eventually saw the car through the store window.
Lowell said in opening statements that Hunter was only in the area to buy a new phone.
Cleveland testified that Hunter pulled into the parking lot of the gun shop from the direction of an AT&T store across the street.
The gun salesman, Gordon Cleveland, embraced his reputation as a “whale hunter,” chuckling when Hunter Biden’s defense attorney brought up the term and bragging about his ability to close deals for pricey guns.
The defense is pursuing this line of inquiry because in opening statements it told the jury that Cleveland essentially peddled the gun to Hunter Biden.
“I could sell whatever you had. It’s just what I did,” he said, explaining why his colleagues called him a whale hunter. This included attempts to push his customers to buy more expensive guns, he conceded.
But Cleveland said he did that because the pricier guns are more reliable and high quality.
He wouldn’t peddle “junk” onto customers, Cleveland said.
The jury has been excused for the day in the Hunter Biden trial.
The court will resume Thursday at 9 a.m. ET with Gordon Cleveland, an employee at the gun store, back on the stand.
Not to mention that the DoJ had already been weaponized by his predecessor.