It was clear that talking about her father was a very sore subject for Naomi Biden. And even though she is a Columbia Law School graduate, she appeared very uncomfortable on the stand after the defense called her to testify Friday in the Hunter Biden trial.
Naomi Biden entered court Friday with her husband, and first lady Jill Biden immediately motioned for him to come sit next to her among the Biden family and friends who make up at least the first two rows of the courtroom.
Naomi Biden’s testimony focused on two moments in 2018 when she saw her father.
The first time was in August or September, when she went to visit her father in Los Angeles. Hunter Biden had reached out to her to come visit him while he was in rehab. He offered to arrange the trip, and Naomi Biden said she agreed to go, even though she hadn’t seen him in a while.
On the stand, Naomi Biden was as authentic and convincing as the child of a drug addict.
She then testified about a trip to New York, where Hunter Biden came to pick up a car. She described seeing him in late October and said she felt “hopeful.” Naomi Biden said her father looked the same to her as when she saw him in Los Angeles.
Under cross-examination by prosecutor Leo Wise, she again testified that she had not seen her father recently because “after my uncle died, things got worse,” around 2015.
Prosecutors got her to admit that she didn’t really know what he was like when he was using drugs because she hadn’t seen him in some time.
Prosecutors appeared to catch Naomi and defense attorney Abbe Lowell off guard when they presented her with a series of texts she exchanged with her father during the New York trip.
Naomi Biden appeared a little confused and reluctant when confronted with texts that appeared to show her father was somewhat erratic and uncommunicative when trying to fix the hand on his car.
She didn’t remember the exchange and began to sound increasingly uncomfortable when she talked about the text messages her father sent her in the wee hours of the morning about trading in his car.
As she left the podium, Naomi Biden gave her father a hug, a kiss on the cheek, and was seen shaking and wiping away tears as she left the courtroom.
cnn
