White collar defense lawyer Seth Berenzweig told CNN on Monday that Hunter Biden’s sole hope for an acquittal in his trial is to get the jury to feel sympathy for him.
Biden’s trial commenced last week in Delaware and the president’s son faces three federal gun charges brought by special counsel David Weiss in September, such as providing false statements and knowingly possessing a gun while being addicted to drugs.
Berenzweig on “CNN Newsroom” said the defense has performed well, but given the “overwhelming” evidence, the jury will require an emotional appeal to acquit Biden.
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“I didn’t think that they really had a lot of evidence to affirmatively put on. His daughter provided some very emotional testimony,” Berenzweig said. “She was subject to a pretty aggressive direct examination. I think that the defense overall has done a good job in so far as they have tried to keep the car right in the middle of the road and they’ve been very, very specific, but even if that evidence, and … I think the evidence is pretty overwhelming. Even if that evidence gets them to, say, the one yard line, the only way that … the defense counsel’s going to get the ball into the goal line is if they pull at the heartstrings of the jury.”
“This has to be a very emotionally pulling closing. They have to humanize and sympathize Hunter Biden, and that‘s going to be, I predict, a really big part of the closing argument of the defense in this,” he added.
Prosecutors collected messages and material from Biden’s abandoned laptop, showing it to the jury as evidence of his drug use around the time he purchased the gun in 2018, according to CNN. Criminal defense attorney Bernarda Villalona at the start of the trial suggested Biden plead guilty, saying Weiss’ evidence implicating him is “strong” and that it may be his “best” course of action to evade incarceration.
“They do have a mountain of evidence,” former federal prosecutor Alyse Adamson said on the Monday CNN panel. “They have, I believe they they put on a forensic chemist to testify that there was some residue found on the gun pouch to prove that there was some contemporaneous drug use with the possession of the weapon. We have Hunter Biden’s own words taken from his memoir, which I believe was very strong for the jury.”
“And quite frankly, the defense tried the best that they could, but they weren’t really able to bring a lot out to cast doubt,” she added. “It is all about, did Hunter Biden know that he was an addict? Did he consider himself an addict during those 11 days and at the time he signed those forms? And there was no direct evidence, but there sure was a lot of circumstantial evidence. So if I was the prosecution, I‘d be feeling pretty good going into closing arguments.”
First published by the Daily Caller News Foundation.
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