Two Of Hunter Biden’s Exes Describe His Years Of Drug Abuse

WILMINGTON, Delaware — Hunter Biden’s federal trial on gun-related charges took a personal turn Wednesday as two of his former romantic partners, including his ex-wife, Kathleen Buhle, took the witness stand and described Biden’s years of abusing crack cocaine.

Both women were called by prosecutors, who have charged the president’s son with three felonies stemming from his purchase of a handgun in October 2018. Prosecutors say he lied about his drug addiction on a federal gun-purchasing form and then illegally possessed the gun for about two weeks.

Buhle, who was married to Biden from 1993 to 2017 and has three daughters with him, said she learned he was using crack when she found a crack pipe in their home on July 3, 2015.

“He acknowledged smoking crack,” she said.

She said his behavior changed around the time she found the pipe. “He was angry, short-tempered, acting in ways he hadn't when he was sober,” she said.

But she also said there were times when she believed he was using drugs but other people didn't, based on his behavior.

She testified that, from 2015 to 2019, she often searched his vehicle for crack cocaine because he would let their daughters use his car. She said she found drugs or drug paraphernalia at least a dozen times.

Buhle’s testimony, along with cross-examination and the prosecution’s follow-up questioning, lasted less than 20 minutes. Many of Buhle’s answers were just one word — a brusque yes or no.

The next witness was Zoe Kestan, a former romantic partner of Biden. She testified that she met him on Dec. 17, 2017, when she worked at a strip club in midtown Manhattan and he booked her and another woman for a private dance. Biden played the music by the indie folk band Fleet Foxes on his phone — and he smoked something she assumed was crack.

“I felt really safe around him,” she said.

She saw him again a week later, and they stayed together for five days at the Soho Grand hotel. He typically smoked crack every 20 minutes, she testified, and he was “just so charming and so nice. At the time, I felt myself having feelings for him.”

They remained involved over the following months, and traveled to California in the spring of 2018. He continued using crack frequently, Kestan said.

During her testimony, prosecutors showed photos from her phone that included crack pipes. One photo showed Biden in a bathtub holding a crack pipe.

The trial broke for lunch before prosecutor Leo Wise, a top deputy for special counsel David Weiss, finished questioning Kestan. It was unclear at that point if she would testify about whether Biden was using drugs in October 2018, when he bought the gun.

Biden’s defense team has argued that, by that point, Biden had finished a rehab stint and could have genuinely believed he was no longer addicted to drugs.

First Lady Jill Biden was in the fourth-floor courtroom in downtown Wilmington again Wednesday morning, but she left before Buhle and Kestan took the stand. She then returned to the courthouse during the lunch break. The first lady is scheduled to depart for France later Wednesday with the president.

One of Jill Biden's sisters, Bonny Jacobs, was present throughout the morning session, as was Hunter Biden's current wife, Melissa Cohen Biden.

Earlier Wednesday, the prosecution and Hunter Biden’s defense sparred over the significance of a large volume of cash he withdrew from personal and business bank accounts in the months and weeks immediately surrounding the gun purchase.

The prosecution has contended that the numerous withdrawals from ATMs and sometimes bank branches indicate that Biden’s crack cocaine addiction was in full swing and required him to come up with hundreds of dollars a day or more to fuel it.

However, defense attorney Abbe Lowell suggested during questioning of an FBI agent Wednesday morning that other expenses such as rent, Airbnb charges, payments for his daughters’ tuition and fees paid for so-called “rehab” services could account for much of the spending.

“Do you know how much money he [had to] pay in alimony?” Lowell asked special agent Erika Jensen. She said she did not.

Prosecutor Derek Hines later ridiculed Lowell’s suggestions about where Biden’s money was going.

“Did you see any evidence during your investigation [of] Mr. Biden taking wads of cash and putting them in envelopes to mail to Airbnb?” Hines asked. The agent said she hadn’t seen that either.

Lowell also noted Tuesday and Wednesday that Biden struggled both with alcohol and cocaine addiction. The defense attorney has suggested there is little evidence Biden was actively using crack during the weeks before the gun purchase. The federal form that asks about drug use and addiction does not mention alcohol.

Hines poked fun at the notion that alcohol purchases accounted for much of the roughly $151,000 in cash Biden withdrew in a three-month period that included the gun purchase. The prosecutor noted that bank records showed a series of liquor and wine store purchases Biden made using a debit card.

“Do drug dealers take credit cards?” Hines asked.

“Not in my experience,” Jensen said.

Lowell also sought to raise questions about the completion of the gun-purchase form at the center of the case. Judge Maryellen Noreika has barred Biden’s defense from telling jurors that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms wound up with two versions of the completed form from the gun store.

However, the defense attorney did highlight to jurors that the writing on the form is in three different colors. He suggested that the handwriting suggests different portions were completed by different individuals.

Jurors also heard the defense raise some questions about the handling of a laptop that Biden brought to a Delaware computer store in April 2019. Emergence of the alleged contents of that laptop just before the 2020 presidential election led to a heated dispute over whether the photos and messages it contained were authentic or concocted by Russia.

Noreika has barred direct discussion of that, but Lowell did ask Jensen if she could testify about what happened to the laptop during the six months between when Biden dropped it off and when the FBI received it in October 2019.

“When we obtained the data, it was authentic from that point forward,” Jensen said.