Takeaways from Day 1 of Hunter Biden's firearms trial

The Biden family members seated in a Wilmington court for the start of Hunter Biden’s firearms trial on Monday share many of the hardships as the jurors who will weigh the fate of the president's son.

The Biden family members seated in a court in Wilmington, Delaware, for the start of Hunter Biden’s gun trial Monday share many of the hardships as the jurors who will weigh the fate of the president's son. Hunter Biden is himself a former drug addict, on trial accused of illegal gun possession and making false statements. He is divorced and remarried. He has experienced death, as when his brother died of a brain tumor in 2015 and when his biological mother and younger sister died in a car crash when he was 2 years old.

Hunter Biden is also the president’s son, a distinction that was impossible to ignore as, time and again, jurors name-dropped members of the Biden family during jury selection or coyly conceded that, yes, they had once donated to a political campaign — and yes — it had been to the “Bidens.”

Peering over peach-colored eyeglasses, Biden sat upright as dozens of potential jurors filed through U.S District Judge Maryellen Noreika’s court during an at times grueling selection process. Noon had passed when Hunter’s lead attorney, Abbe Lowell, gently asked, “For the schedule, are we thinking, I forget if there was supposed to be a lunch break today or not?”

Seated behind him were not only the attorneys, reporters and sketch artists who typically fill the courtroom in high-profile cases but also first lady Jill Biden, who embraced her son, his half-sister and even his son-in-law.

It was a gripping scene in a historic case in which the president's son could face up to 25 years in jail. The first lady described the charges as “cruel” in an interview with MSNBC this year. She sat directly behind her son, eyeing the proceedings closely and offering support to him and other family members.

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/white-house/takeaways-day-1-hunter-bidens-firearms-trial-rcna155333

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