Judge Maryellen Noreika ruled that jurors at Hunter Biden’s trial on weapons charges can be shown damning evidence about his illegal drug use taken from his hard drive, iPhone, iPad, and memoir.
What a long, strange trip it’s been.
Five years and one month after first son Hunter Biden dropped off three damaged laptops at a repair shop in Wilmington, Del., and never returned to pick them up, a Delaware federal judge ruled that jurors at the 54-year-old’s upcoming trial on weapons charges can be shown damaging evidence about his illegal drug use taken from his hard drive, his iPhone and iPad and his own memoir.
As Hunter looked on in court — one day after attending a White House state dinner — US District Judge Maryellen Noreika in Wilmington ruled that the “laptop from hell” could not be barred out of hand based on his legal team’s claim it had been hacked and seeded with false information.
However, Noreika did rule that the first son’s attorneys can object to the introduction of specific pieces of information from the laptop as prosecutors — who say there is no evidence that the computer was ever compromised — seek to raise them during trial, which begins with jury selection June 3.
The item-by-item nature of Noreika’s ruling is likely to lead to explosive disagreements between prosecutors and the defense, and could stretch the case beyond its expected one-week time frame.
The Post first reported on the laptop’s contents — which included evidence of influence-peddling, illegal foreign lobbying, drug use and prostitution — in October 2020, only for Big Tech companies like Facebook and Twitter to suppress sharing of the story while dozens of former intelligence officials attacked the report as having “all the hallmarks of Russian disinformation.
