The jury in the Hunter Biden gun case was deadlocked in an initial vote Monday night over whether to convict the president’s son, one of the jurors told CNN in an interview, adding that “no politics came into play” during deliberations before they arrived at a guilty verdict.
The male juror, No. 10, also said that it was a mistake to put Naomi Biden, Hunter’s daughter, on the stand, and that jurors felt bad that she was called to testify.
Hunter Biden was found guilty on Tuesday of all three federal felony gun charges he faced, with the jury concluding that he violated laws meant to prevent drug addicts from owning firearms. When the jury returned on Tuesday morning, there was only one remaining holdout, the juror who spoke with CNN said. Over the next few hours, the jury discussed the elements of each crime, the man said, and the last holdout agreed that they should return a guilty verdict.
While the male juror did not say whether he was a supporter of President Joe Biden, he said he felt sympathy for the family’s struggle with Hunter Biden’s addiction. He also said he doesn’t believe Hunter Biden belongs in jail.
Hunter “was just like anybody else,” juror No. 10 told CNN. But, the juror said, he based his decision on the fact that Hunter Biden did not disclose that he was a drug addict when he bought the gun.
“We all knew he was a drug addict,” the first juror said. “In his mind, how could he not know he was an addict?”
The juror pointed to the fact that Hunter Biden did not want the gun back after Hallie Biden took it out of his truck and threw it in the garbage near a grocery store.
“When he said he did not want that gun back and that gun sat in evidence for almost five years, I think that’s what may have been what led to his downfall. If he had taken possession of that gun, I don’t know if we would have even had a trial,” the juror said.
The juror said it didn’t make a difference for him that Hunter Biden did not take the stand in his own defense. In fact, he said he agrees that was “better off not testifying.”
“I didn’t think it would be a good idea for him to testify in his own defense,” the juror said.
Ultimately, the first juror said, the unilateral guilty verdicts “came down to the rules.”
Three jurors who spoke to CNN after they reached a guilty verdict said that they believed they had no choice but to find Hunter Biden guilty but said that they question whether the criminal case ever should have been brought against the president’s son.
The case “seemed like a waste of taxpayer dollars,” one female juror told CNN.
Another male juror said that the process was “a little bit frustrating because it felt like we couldn’t get the full story.”
This story is breaking and will be updated.