It was clear that speaking about her father was a very painful subject for Naomi Biden. And even though she is a graduate of Columbia Law School, she appeared very uncomfortable on the stand after the defense called her to testify Friday in the trial against Hunter Biden.
Naomi Biden entered the court on 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 instances in 2018 when she saw her father.
The first was in August or September, when she went to visit her dad in Los Angeles. Hunter Biden had reached out to her to come visit him amid his stint in rehab. He offered to arrange the trip, and Naomi Biden said she agreed to go, even though she had not seen him in quite some time.
On the stand, Naomi Biden came across as genuine and compelling as the child of an addict.
She then testified about a trip to New York City, where Hunter Biden came to pick up a car. She described seeing him at the end of October, and said she felt “hopeful.” Naomi Biden said her father seemed the same as when she had seen him in Los Angeles.
On cross-examination by prosecutor Leo Wise, she again testified about how she had not seen her father recently because “after my uncle died, things got bad,” around 2015.
Prosecutors got her to concede that she really did not know what he was like when he was using drugs, because she had not seen him for quite some time.
Prosecutors seemed to catch Naomi and defense attorney Abbe Lowell off guard when they introduced her to a series of texts she exchanged with her father during the trip to New York.
Naomi Biden seemed a little confused and reticent when confronted with texts appearing to show her father to be somewhat erratic and non-communicative when trying to arrange the hand off of his car.
She did not remember the exchange and started to appear increasingly uncomfortable when talking about texts her father sent her in the wee hours of the morning about exchanging his car.
As she left the stand, Naomi Biden gave her dad a cool embrace, a kiss on the cheek, and was seen trembling and wiping away tears as she exited the courtroom.
