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Indeed

Hunter Biden's family banded together for his trial. A bigger challenge awaits.

ASeptember trial on tax chargescould be more politically difficult for Hunter Biden and his family.

June 12, 2024, 10:00 AM GMT+1

By Sarah Fitzpatrick, Mike Memoli, Natasha Korecki and Monica Alba

WILMINGTON, Del. — Moments after a jury convicted him on three felony gun charges, Hunter Biden vowed to family members and friends who had sat through nearly each day of his weeklong trial that the verdict “will not stop us from moving forward.”

The small group was gathered in the defense room, just steps from the courtroom where he had just learned his fate. Hunter Biden choked up when he singled out his parents and his wife, Melissa Cohen Biden.

Without her, he said, “I’d be dead.”

First lady Jill Biden appeared to cry, as did several other people in the room.

“We had our hopes up,” a person who was in the room said. “We thought there were strong defenses that would resonate with at least a few jurors.”

The conviction shook the close-knit Biden family. President Joe Biden changed his plans and flew to Wilmington to be with his son, who met him on the tarmac at the airport and embraced him with a hug.

Despite the brave faces father and son put forth publicly Tuesday, the road forward may only get more difficult for both men — personally, politically and legally.

Within hours after the verdict, Republicans were already telegraphing that while they may have held their fire during a trial that dealt with the sensitive issue of addiction, they will be unsparing when the focus turns to a potential tax case set for trial in September.

“This trial has been nothing more than a distraction from the real crimes of the Biden Crime Family,” Karoline Leavitt, former President Donald Trump’s campaign spokesperson, said in a statement.

Biden aides are already looking ahead to that trial anxiously. While the gun charges trial put humiliating, personal family dynamics and history on display, the one in California on accusations of tax evasion could expose controversial information about Hunter Biden’s business dealings, which Republicans have long sought to tie to his father, without evidence.

The timing of the trial raises the stakes. A pretrial hearing is scheduled for mid-August, just before the Democratic National Convention, with jury selection beginning weeks later as Biden and Trump would be meeting for their second and final debate. A verdict could come as early voting begins in some key states ahead of the November election.

Aides and allies close to the Bidens say that family matters are some of the most sensitive topics for those working in the White House and the campaign — and that the scrutiny would only get more intense as focus now turns to the September trial. Conversations about public comments concerning the family are typically handled through “discrete channels,” said a former aide. And only a select few are allowed to craft statements to the media.

A former Biden campaign official said: “Matters involving the family were always so paramount for Joe Biden, so any matter involving family, particularly one in the public eye, was going to be something that would be handled with the greatest degree of care. You just didn’t want to shoot from the hip on something involving the family. If they were to see it and be unhappy with it — that would not be good.”

A former White House official said that could complicate the messaging around the fall trial, because of the Bidens’ tendency to severely limit comment around sensitive family issues.

“If they’re not talking, others will, and so the vacuum gets filled, the story gets told in a narrative that’s not shaped by the campaign” or the White House, the former official said. “And I’m sure Democrats everywhere will be wringing their hands. Can I say anything? Can I react at all?”

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/joe-biden/hunter-biden-family-banded-together-trial-challenge-rcna156575