Dan Mitchinson: US correspondent on the start of Hunter Biden's federal gun trial

Another historic criminal prosecution in the US begins as Hunter Biden faces federal gun charges.

The jury's been sworn in for the trial of Joe Biden's 54-year-old son.

He's accused of lying about illegal drug use when buying a Colt Cobra revolver in 2018, and illegally possessing it for 11 days.

US correspondent Dan Mitchinson says Hunter Biden could be facing a fine, community service or house arrest.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
International Correspondence with Ends and Eye Insurance, Peace of mind
for New Zealand business. Hither'll be nice to boomers they
think they fought will far too. Thank you, Pascal. I'll
take that. Thank you. This is a good piece of advice.
Dan Mitchinson, US correspondent with US.

Speaker 2 (00:14):
Now, Hey, Dan, if that Boomer's text does come through,
feel free to interrupt me at any time.

Speaker 1 (00:19):
If that comes out, we're sending it. We're sending out
one of those I News alerts to tell people that
boomer text get through. You need to tune in immediately.
I'm going to send you all kinds of messages, emails,
I'm gonna seed to text. I'm see your Facebook messages, Dan, everything, Dan.
What have we got from Hunter to Biden's trial?

Speaker 2 (00:35):
Well, it was day two today and basically both sides
are laying the groundwork for this case and they're trying
to decide whether or not Hunter Biden purchased this gun
while he was addicted to drugs. He's been charged with
several felonies here buying this cult revolver when he was
addicted to crack, and that's according to his memoir. He's

(00:57):
been accused of lying and having the gun for eleven days.
So really what the jury did today was listening to
these audio excerpts of his memoir of Hunter talking about
his book Beautiful Things, in which he narrates how he
went back to Delaware and he bought the gun and
is descended at drugs and his the death of his
brother back in twenty fifteen. So President was in Washington today,

(01:19):
so he wasn't there at the trial, and he's heading
over to France for that, but he's he's getting some
support from some of his family.

Speaker 1 (01:26):
Interesting, how do you think this is going to play out.

Speaker 2 (01:30):
I think he's going to get a little bit of
a slap on the wrist to find maybe he'll get
a little house arrest as well as in community service.
I'll be surprised if he gets any kind of jail time.
Maybe he'll have time spent, you know, time served already
for that. But that's that's what I can see happening
at this point in time.

Speaker 1 (01:46):
I mean, politically, you almost need something to be done
to Hunt to Biden, given that something's been done to
Donald Trump, right, Otherwise it's just going to seem the
conspiracy to.

Speaker 2 (01:53):
Amedice Moirl exactly. That's what you've got Republicans already going
on about at this point.

Speaker 1 (01:57):
Okay, now, why did Joe Biden? I mean, Joe Biden
is obviously right that Benjamin nittan Yah who was dragging
out the war and guys of a political game, But
why did he say it?

Speaker 2 (02:07):
Well, I mean, that's that's one of those questions. You
just don't know why Joe Biden says what Joe Biden says,
like you don't know why Donald Trump says what Donald
Trump really says. And I think if you look at
the things, I mean, you know, Netanyahu's popularity is plummeted
after the attack by Hamas. I think most political observers
agree that he would lose the elections if it was
hell today. And I think Biden was just the same,

(02:29):
basically what he felt. And then a White House spokesperson
later in the day kind of walk that back a
little bit, you might say. And Joe Biden even did
the same too, saying what he didn't think that When
he was asked whether nat Yah, who was playing politics
with the war, Biden said, I don't think so. He's
trying to work out a serious problem that he has.
So again, words are important especially when you're somebody at

(02:50):
Joe Biden's age, when you're accused of having some of
the cognitive issues that he has, when you're this close
to an election like we are over here.

Speaker 1 (02:57):
Would you talk to an AI version of the deed?

Speaker 2 (03:01):
You know? I don't know since I saw this story,
I mean, would you.

Speaker 1 (03:05):
Yeah, I reckon? I would I reckon, I would do it,
But Dan, I reckon. I would do it, like with
an absolute check on myself, because if it started to
become like I was actually believing this really was my
dead granny, Like if I was starting to get weird
about it, I'd need to self regulate.

Speaker 2 (03:21):
Wouldn't you. Yeah, I think so. And basically, this man
found out, you know, when he was terminally ill with
colon cancer, spent a lot of time with his wife
and said, you know, what's going to happen after my death?
And she said she'd miss asking him questions. So he
came up with this idea to recreate his voice with
AI and teamed up with a friend here in the
US to start this AI legacy platform. And we're seeing

(03:44):
more of these here. There's a company in California called
story File that will allow you to interact with pre
recorded videos, and what that does is it uses algorithms
to kind of second guess what the questions are going
to be. And then there's another project that has you
fill out this questionnaire about you know, the person and
their traits, and then you pay ten dollars and it
kind of, you know, simulates a text based conversation with

(04:05):
the character. So maybe it's good, maybe it helps you
feel better, but I think it's going to open up
a whole lot of ethical questions too well.

Speaker 1 (04:13):
I think it's going to make a whole bunch of
people go crazy. Thank you, Dan, I appreciate it. Dan Mitchison,
US correspondent. For more from Hither Duplessy Allen Drive, listen
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