Hunter Biden could be seen wiping away tears as his eldest daughter Naomi testified in his defense at a felony gun trial Friday — during his first real display of emotions at trial.
Naomi — one of Hunter’s three daughters with ex-wife Kathleen Buhle — told jurors about visiting her dad at The View rehab center in California in August 2018 and introducing him to her boyfriend Peter.
“I visited him with my boyfriend who is now my husband,” Naomi said. “I hadn’t seen my dad in a really long time and I know he was in a rehab facility there.”
“We met him at a coffee shop, had lunch with him and met his sober coach,” she said.
Naomi needed to be reminded the name of the rehab facility, which was The View.
“Yeah, it was sorry. I’m nervous,” she explained.
“He seemed like the clearest I had seen him since my uncle died,” she said.
“He seemed really great. I told him I was so proud of him and so proud to be able to introduce Peter to him,” Naomi said, as Hunter wiped tears from his eyes.
Naomi — who was called as the third defense witness — went on to recount texting with her dad on Oct. 17, 18, and 19 as she had been trying to meet up with him in Manhattan to swap cars after borrowing his pickup to help Peter move into her apartment.
First she received messages from Hunter at 11:40pm on Oct. 17 saying “Are you up? Please call me.”
He then sent her another message at 2:00 a.m. on Oct. 18 saying, “Where are the keys for the truck and can Peter bring the keys to 57th and 5th and I’ll trade cars with him?”
Prosecutor Leo Wise during cross-examination of Naomi asked, “Do you know what your father was doing at 2:00 a.m. and why he was asking for the car then?”
“No,” Naomi answered.
Wise read her response to her dad saying, “Right now?”
They then decided on meeting later that afternoon. But Hunter, 54, flaked on his daughter — who was in her second year of law school at Columbia University at the time — when they were supposed to swap cars, according to their messages, read by Wise.
Hunter was going to give Naomi her president grandfather’s Cadillac and Hunter would take back his Ford Raptor pick-up truck.
Naomi asked her dad in a text if she wasn’t going to be able to see him that afternoon and when he said he couldn’t meet her she sent him a sad-face emoji.
“I’m really sad dad,” Wise said reading Naomi’s text to Hunter. “I can’t take this. I don’t know what to say. I just miss you so much. And want to hang out with you.”
Wise asked Naomi to confirm sending that text to which she said yes as her voice broke with emotion.
Wise asked her if she knew that Hunter had someone named Frankie come to meet him in his hotel room and if she knew her father had given Frankie an access code to his Wells Fargo bank account.
“I don’t remember,” she said, her voice cracking.
Hunter’s ex-girlfriend Zoe Kestan previously testified that she saw Hunter buy a “ping-pong ball”-size amount of crack from a dealer named Frankie at the Four Seasons hotel.
The Biden scion is accused of buying a .38-calibre Colt Cobra revolver on Oct. 12, 2018 while he was in the middle of an addiction to crack cocaine. While prosecutors don’t need to prove the first son was high that day, they do need to show jurors he was using around that time.
Earlier, when her father’s lawyer Abbe Lowell asked her if she saw any drug paraphernalia or drug residue in his pickup she said, “No, it was in good condition.”
After her testimony wrapped up Naomi, appeared to clear her eyes with her hand. She then hugged her father on her way out of the courtroom.
Hunter also walked out — as trial broke for lunch — holding hands with his stepmom and first lady Jill Biden.