First lady Jill Biden left President Biden’s camp in France on Thursday to make the transatlantic trip back to Delaware, where Hunter Biden is standing trial on gun charges.
According to her communications director, Elizabeth Alexander, the first lady is expected to return to France for a state visit on Saturday.
The first lady’s passing after a high-profile foreign trip is perhaps the most dramatic illustration to date. Biden family’s personal prioritieslocated approximately 3,600 miles from France, in Courtroom 4A of the J. Caleb Boggs Federal Building in Wilmington, Del.
Hunter Biden is on trial on charges of lying about his drug use on a gun purchase application in October 2018 and illegal possession of a weapon.
The boomerang ride also says something about the determination of the first lady, who is not Hunter Biden’s blood relative but is the woman who raised him since he was a child. Over time, she became a pillar of protection for her family.
“I’m his mother,” she said in an interview in 2022, when Hunter Biden was the subject of a federal investigation surrounding his gun purchases. “I mean, I’m supposed to support him and love him, and you know, I talk to him all the time, send him messages; ‘How are you?’ Because it’s difficult.”
A plane trip across the Atlantic shows just how difficult it can be.
The first lady is expected to be back in the courtroom on Friday after three days there this week. On Monday — her 73rd birthday — she watched hours of mundane interviews with dozens of prospective jurors. At recess, she hugged Hunter Biden. She consoled her daughter, Ashley Biden, who also appeared in court this week and at times became emotional as her brother’s struggles were outlined. The first lady’s eyes remained dry.
The Bidens like to emphasize that they face many of the same challenges — namely addiction — that most Americans face, but this week the family’s uniquely complex dynamics were on display. .
On Wednesday, the first lady walked out of the room to hear testimony from Hunter Biden’s ex-wife, Kathleen Buhle, with whom she reportedly had a frosty relationship. On Thursday, she missed testimony from her former daughter-in-law, Hallie Biden, who dated Hunter Biden after the death of his brother, Beau.
Because their relationship turned dark and descended into drug use, Hallie Biden is an important witness for prosecution: She dumped Hunter Biden’s Colt Cobra gun in a trash can outside a grocery store. The the collapse of a plea deal between Mr. Biden and prosecutors last year led to accusations that he lied on a federal registration application when he bought the gun.
Dr. Biden will want to be present when defense attorneys begin calling Biden family members. The list includes Naomi Biden, the first couple’s great-granddaughter and a vocal defender of her father, and James Biden, the president’s brother, whom Biden has tasked with trying to bring his young nephew to justice. His barb escapes from addiction.
According to people who know them, Hunter Biden and the first lady, whom he calls mother, have a close relationship. But the nature of their relationship was different from the relationship Hunter Biden had with the rest of his family — specifically Valerie Biden Owens, his aunt. She was the first Biden to move in to raise Biden’s sons after his first wife, Neilia, and infant daughter Naomi, died in a car accident in December 1972.
Hunter and Beau Biden bonded with Mrs. Biden Owens, and their uncle, James Biden, who also raised the boys before their father began dating Jill Biden in 1975. The Bidens married in year 1977.
Growing up, it was Beau Biden, Mr. Biden’s oldest son who passed away in 2015, who shared her sense of humor. Hunter Biden wrote in his memoir, “Beautiful Things,” that he sometimes felt left out of their jokes. But he also praised her for “doing a great job, especially in front of everyone.”
In his own memoir, “Where the Light Comes In,” Dr. Biden wrote that Hunter Biden is a son Biden “more like me.”
“He didn’t want to talk about his feelings much, and he didn’t always know how to express them as a child, but he always showed you with his actions — he warm and loving. ”
Decades later, he clashed explosively with Dr. Biden when she helped lead the family’s effort to get him clean. In early 2019, when Hunter Biden was once again reeling from addiction, Dr. Biden called and invited him to dinner at his home in Wilmington. It turned out to be an intervention. Hunter Biden stormed out of the house and left for California, where he continued to use, he wrote in his memoir, until he met his wife, Melissa Cohen Biden.
The extent of his addiction was not made public until the contents of a laptop he left at a repair shop were widely disseminated on conservative websites before the 2020 election.
In the tumultuous years since, the first lady has tried to keep him close and showed her support by inviting Hunter Biden and his family, who live in Los Angeles, to participate. East Wing events such as the White House Easter Egg Roll. After him start paintingshe hung one of his works in her East Wing office.
She also publicly maintained her innocence when Hunter Biden was investigated for gun purchases and tax evasion, the source of another round of charges for which he will stand trial later this year.
“Everybody and their brother investigated Hunter,” the first lady told NBC News. in fall 2022. “They kept doing it and doing it and doing it. I know Hunter is innocent. I love my son and I will always look forward.”
That’s now up to the jury to decide.
