Naomi Biden, a daughter of Hunter Biden and a granddaughter of the president, took the stand at her father’s criminal trial on Friday, recounting in emotional testimony how she visited him while he was in a drug rehab program about six weeks before he bought the gun at the center of the case. Naomi, 30, was called by the defense after prosecutors rested their case earlier in the day.

When the trial reconvenes on Monday, there is one more witness who might testify: Hunter himself. His lawyer indicated Friday afternoon that the defense team will decide over the weekend whether he will take the stand in his own defense before the case moves to closing arguments.


Naomi’s testimony was intended to strengthen the defense’s argument that Hunter could have been sober in October 2018, when he allegedly bought a Colt revolver and possessed it for 11 days.

But during cross-examination, prosecutors presented text messages that painted a different picture of Hunter’s life during the critical period.

Prosecutors led by special counsel David Weiss have charged the president’s son with three felonies. They say that he lied on a federal gun purchase form by claiming he wasn’t using drugs and that he violated a federal law barring drug users from having guns.

Late in the summer of 2018, Naomi testified, her father asked her to visit him in rehab in California, where he was fighting an addiction to crack cocaine. She met him at a coffee shop in Los Angeles with his sober coach, then had lunch and went shopping.