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      Senate Republicans block bill that establishes right to IVF across the US

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      Senate Republicans have defeated a bill that would have established a federal right to in vitro fertilization, a piece of legislation that Democrats forced to the floor on Thursday as part of an election-year effort to contrast their approach to reproductive rights with that of the party across the aisle.The bill, the Right to IVF act, would have overwritten any state efforts to restrict the right to IVF as well as seeking to make the treatment more affordable and accessible, including for US military service members and veterans.The legislation was introduced by Senators Patty Murray of Washington state, Cory Booker of New Jersey and Tammy Duckworth of Illinois, and the bill was not expected to pass, given that most legislation needs at least 60 votes to advance in the Senate.Instead, Democrats hoped to get Republicans on the record opposing an infertility treatment that is widely popular among Americans. They deployed a similar strategy last week, when Democrats held a vote on a bill that would have guaranteed a nationwide right to contraception – which, like IVF, is very popular. That bill, the Right to Contraception act, also failed.“Last week, every senator was put on the record as to whether they will defend the right to contraception. And despite Republicans’ words about supporting birth control, their actions – voting against the Right to Contraception act – spoke louder,” Murray said in a speech from the Senate floor on Thursday. “Today, we are putting Republicans on the record on another issue families across the country are deeply concerned about: the right to IVF.”The Louisiana senator Bill Cassidy, a Republican, denounced the bill, which he said was motivated by “political purposes”.“This is not serious legislation,” Cassidy said. “It was not brought through the committee process. It is a political process.”Because IVF typically involves creating embryos that may not be implanted in a woman’s uterus or may go unused after genetic testing, some anti-abortion campaigners have long opposed IVF. However, the US abortion wars have rarely focused on IVF.Then, in February, the Alabama state supreme court ruled that frozen embryos created through IVF are legally “extrauterine children” – a decision that endorsed the tenets of so-called fetal personhood, promoted by a US movement that seeks to endow embryos and fetuses with full legal rights and protections. The ruling led many IVF providers in Alabama to temporarily pause their operations, which created chaos and triggered backlash across the country.Still, anti-abortion activists have continued to gain ground in their battle on IVF. On Wednesday, the Southern Baptist Convention, the largest Protestant group in the US, voted at its annual meeting to condemn IVF. With its nearly 13 million members and enormous political influence, the Southern Baptist Convention’s rejection of IVF signaled a turning point in the debate over IVF. Although evangelical Protestants have largely supported IVF, the vote suggests that the anti-abortion movement is successfully making the case that opposition to abortion necessitates opposition to IVF.“This is not the end of our fight for family building for all. We will continue until everyone in this country has access to the family building options they need and the availability of IVF is guaranteed in all 50 states,” Barbara Collura, president and CEO of Resolve: The National Infertility Association, said in a statement Thursday, after the failed Senate vote. “Introducing this bill was already a big win for advocates of increasing access to fertility treatments. Our work led to this comprehensive legislation, and we are not giving up.” More

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      Clarence Thomas took additional trips funded by Harlan Crow, senator reveals

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      The US supreme court justice Clarence Thomas took at least three additional trips funded by the billionaire benefactor Harlan Crow that the conservative justice failed to disclose, the chair of the Senate judiciary committee said on Thursday.Crow, a Texas businessman and Republican donor, disclosed details about the justice’s travel between 2017 and 2021 in response to a judiciary committee vote last November to authorize subpoenas to Crow and another influential conservative, according to the committee chair, Senator Dick Durbin, a Democrat representing Illinois.“The Senate judiciary committee’s investigation into the supreme court’s ethical crisis is producing new information – like what we’ve revealed [on Thursday] – and makes it crystal clear that the highest court needs an enforceable code of conduct, because its members continue to choose not to meet the moment,” Durbin said.A supreme court spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment, nor did a lawyer for Crow.Thomas has previously come under criticism for failing to disclose gifts from Crow. Most recently, Thomas last week belatedly revised his 2019 financial disclosure form to acknowledge that Crow had paid for his “food and lodging” at a hotel in Bali, Indonesia, and at a California club.But the recent filing by Thomas failed to disclose that Crow had paid for his travel by private jet related to the Bali and California trips, and an eight-day excursion on a yacht in Indonesia, omissions that were revealed on Thursday in a redacted document that Durbin’s office said contained travel itineraries where Crow had provided the justice with transportation.The document shows private jet travel in May 2017 between St Louis in Missouri, the state of Montana, and Dallas. It also shows private jet travel in March 2019 between Washington DC and Savannah, Georgia, and private jet travel in June 2021 between Washington DC and San Jose, California.Under pressure from criticism over ethics, following a series of rows focusing mainly on Thomas and Samuel Alito, the most conservative justices, the nine justices of the supreme court last November adopted their first code of conduct.However, critics and some congressional Democrats have said the code does not go far enough to promote transparency, continuing to leave decisions to recuse from cases to the justices themselves and providing no mechanism of enforcement.Earlier this week, the South Carolina senator Lindsey Graham, the top-ranking Republican on the Senate judiciary committee, said he would block Democrats’ attempts to pass an ethics bill to rein in the US supreme court.And the Democratic congresswomen Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said the court had been “captured and corrupted by money and extremism”, provoking a “crisis of legitimacy” that threatens the stability of US democracy.Reuters contributed reporting More

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      Rightwing media decried Trump’s trial. What about Hunter Biden’s?

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      Two weeks, two big trials, two convictions. After Donald Trump was found guilty of falsifying business records at the end of last month, Hunter Biden, son of Joe, was convicted on Tuesday of buying and owning a gun while being a user of crack cocaine.The rightwing media had howled in anguish when a jury ruled that the former US president was guilty of 34 felony charges: commentators claiming that the justice system was rigged, that the conviction was political persecution, and that Joe Biden had wielded undue influence in Trump being prosecuted.Surely then, the Fox Newses and Breitbarts of the world would be similarly outraged by Hunter Biden’s conviction?Nope.“The facts were simple, the law was clear and the evidence of guilt can only be described as overwhelming,” Gregg Jarrett, an analyst and commentator for Fox News, wrote on the channel’s website, in a piece which championed the fairness and rigor of the American legal system.“As it turns out, even a privileged and coddled Biden must abide by the rule of law.”That was a far cry from Jarrett’s take on the judiciary 13 days earlier, when Trump was convicted in Manhattan.“Donald Trump did not lose on Thursday,” Jarrett wrote, incorrectly.“Our once venerated legal system did. And, by extension, all Americans lost something precious. Because the failure of justice is a failure of the people.”In a 1,000-word outpouring of woe, Jarrett repeated Trump’s – now provably false – claims that no crime was committed, adding “the ideals of a fair trial and an impartial jury faded into a figment of our Founders’ imaginations”.“The tragic coda to the Trump trial is that Americans can no longer trust our system of justice,” Jarrett wrote solemnly.Other Fox News personalities similarly revised their opinion of the US legal system.Jeanine Pirro, a Fox News host, had been outraged after Trump was found guilty, decrying “smoke and mirrors” and claiming “we have gone over a cliff in America”.“This is a new era in America, and I think it goes against the ilk of who we are as Americans and our faith in the criminal justice system,” Pirro said of Trump’s conviction on 30 May.She was of a different mind on Tuesday.“In the end this jury of ordinary people from Delaware were not intimidated by [the Biden] family, and they recognize that this was a clearcut case and that clearly no one is above the law,” Pirro said.View image in fullscreenSpeaking to rightwing channel Newsmax, Alan Dershowitz, a prominent lawyer and commentator who was part of Trump’s legal team during the then president’s first impeachment trial, did a similar flip-flop.“Trump was convicted of a made-up charge; there’s nothing to the case,” Dershowitz said.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“I still can’t figure out what the actual conviction is based on. On the other hand, Hunter Biden was convicted of a real crime.”Away from the doublethink, a new narrative was developing: that the Biden guilty verdict was actually evidence of some sort of cover-up.Many on the right wing claimed that the conviction on gun offenses was an attempt to distract from Republicans’ years-long, unproven conspiracy theory of corruption by both Hunter and Joe Biden.Republicans in the House began an investigation into the Biden family in January 2023, with the idea being that Biden benefited from his son’s business dealings in Ukraine. After nearly 18 months of investigation, Republicans have not found any evidence that the president was involved in any wrongdoing.Republicans have accused Biden of weaponizing the justice system against Trump – an allegation the Hunter Biden guilty verdict would seem to contradict. But that didn’t stop conservative commentators from diving into the issue.“Hunter Biden guilty. Yawn,” Charlie Kirk, the rightwing radio host and founder of Turning Point USA, wrote on X.“The true crimes of the Biden Crime Family remain untouched. This is a fake trial trying to make the Justice system appear ‘balanced.’ Don’t fall for it.”Jack Posobiec, a far-right activist who hosts a video show on X, said in a post: “They went after Hunter on his gun stuff to make you overlook all his Ukraine stuff.”Posobiec did not elaborate on the “Ukraine stuff”. But Breitbart trod a similar line, claiming that Biden’s conviction “allows the left to claim ‘no one is above the law’, while distracting from the much more serious allegations against the first son – and his father”.It has been a whirlwind few days for the rightwing media: from howling at the injustice of the justice system, to celebrating the justice system. Now the claim is that, actually, the justice system might be bad after all: and the Hunter Biden verdict is just a cover-up.Matt Gertz, a senior fellow at Media Matters for America, a progressive media watchdog, perhaps put it best.“The new rightwing line that Joe Biden rigged the trial to put his son in prison,” Gertz wrote, “replaces the old rightwing line that Joe Biden was rigging the trial to keep his son out of prison.” More

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      Lindsey Graham vows to block Democrats’ supreme court ethics bill

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      The South Carolina senator Lindsey Graham, the top-ranking Republican on the Senate judiciary committee, said that he will block Democrats’ attempts to pass an ethics bill to rein in the US supreme court.Graham told NBC News that he “will object” to the bill on Wednesday, meaning it will not move forward on its legislative journey.The Senate judiciary committee chairman, Dick Durbin, from Illinois, told reporters that Senate Democrats were working to unanimously move the bill forward, the Hill reported. Durbin co-authored the bill with Senator Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island.“We’re planning on making a move on the floor this week to move the ethics bill for the supreme court,” Durbin said.It follows a series of scandals focusing on the rightwing justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito in relation both to gifts and to their capacity to serve with political neutrality.Durbin added that “new evidence” might emerge concerning ethics on the supreme court, elaborating that the evidence “relates to the ethical considerations from some of the justices for gifts they’ve taken and not reported”, the Hill reported.US representatives have also criticized what they call a “crisis of legitimacy” affecting the court.While speaking at a round table on Capitol Hill in Washington DC on Tuesday, the New York progressive representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said the court has been captured and corrupted “by money and extremism”.“A group of anti-democratic billionaires with their own ideological and economic agenda has been working one of the three co-equal branches of government,” she said.The Democratic congressman Jamie Raskin of Maryland, who was also at Tuesday’s round table, said: “The highest court in the land today has the lowest ethical standards.”In recent weeks, Alito has faced calls to recuse himself from election-related cases and for a broader investigation after a flag associated in modern times with the far right was reportedly flying above one of his homes.And Alito, along with his wife, Martha-Ann Alito, came under additional scrutiny after Alito said that one side in the US’s partisan left versus right ideology battle “has to win”, in remarks captured in a secret recording.Martha-Ann also criticized the LGBTQ+ Pride flag, as heard in the same recording.Thomas has repeatedly faced criticism for failing to disclose in the official record that he took lavish vacations paid for by the conservative billionaire Harlan Crow, ProPublica first reported. Thomas belatedly disclosed the luxury trips for the court record last week.Public confidence in the court has also swiftly fallen in the last year to near record lows, according to polling from Gallup. More

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      New York probation officers to interview Trump prior to his criminal sentencing

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      Donald Trump is scheduled to be interviewed by New York probation officials Monday, a required step before his July sentencing in his criminal hush-money case, according to three people familiar with the plan.The former president will do the interview via a computer video conference from his residence at the Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Florida, the people told the Associated Press. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to disclose the plans publicly.One of Trump’s lawyers, Todd Blanche, will be present for the interview. People convicted of crimes in New York usually meet with probation officials without their lawyers, but the judge in Trump’s case, Juan Merchan, said in a letter Friday that he would allow Blanche’s presence.The usual purpose of a pre-sentencing probation interview is to prepare a report that will tell the judge more about the defendant, and potentially help determine the proper punishment for the crime.Such reports are typically prepared by a probation officer, a social worker or a psychologist working for the probation department who interviews the defendant and possibly that person’s family and friends, as well as people affected by the crime.Present reports include a defendant’s personal history, criminal record and recommendations for sentencing. It will also include information about employment and any obligations to help care for a family member. It is also a chance for a defendant to say why they think they deserve a lighter punishment.A jury convicted Trump of falsifying business records at his own company as part of a broader scheme to buy the silence of people who might have told embarrassing stories about him during the 2016 presidential campaign. One $130,000 payment went to adult film actor Stormy Daniels, who claimed to have had a sexual encounter with Trump, which he denied.Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, says he is innocent of any crime and that the criminal case was brought to hurt his chances to regain the White House.Following Trump’s historic conviction, a New York Times/Siena College post-verdict analysis of nearly 2,000 interviews with voters found that Trump’s advantage over Joe Biden narrowed from three to one point.Trump’s campaign spokesperson, Steven Cheung, said in a statement Sunday that the president’s Democratic party allies “continue to ramp up their ongoing Witch-Hunts, further abusing and misusing the power of their offices to interfere in the presidential election”.“President Trump and his legal team are already taking necessary steps to challenge and defeat the lawless Manhattan DA case,” he said.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionMerchan has scheduled Trump’s sentencing for 11 July. He has discretion to impose a wide range of punishments, ranging from probation and community service to up to four years in prison.In his first rally earlier this week following his conviction, Trump, who is appealing his conviction, issued foreboding threats.“Those appellate courts have to step up and straighten things out, or we’re not going to have a country any longer,” Trump said at a Turning Point Action event in Phoenix, Arizona.Meanwhile, reports have emerged of New York police planning to revoke Trump’s license to carry a gun as a result of his conviction.Speaking to CNN anonymously, a New York police department official said that it will complete its investigation “that will likely lead to revocation of his license”. More

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      Trump to escalate blame on trial judge Juan Merchan if sentenced to prison

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      Donald Trump is determined to avoid jail, but if he does get handed a prison sentence after his conviction on 34 felony counts in New York last week, the former president’s inner circle is certain he will lay the blame squarely at the judge’s feet, sources familiar with the matter said.The precise way Trump might blame the judge, Juan Merchan, remains unclear because Trump has been avoidant of the issue and the matter was not resolved when he huddled with his top advisers at a Trump Tower meeting immediately after the verdict on Thursday, the sources said.But Trump is likely to double down on his attacks against Merchan, directing his supporters at rallies and in Truth Social posts to take up their grievances with the judge, one of the sources added.The consequences of Trump’s likely rhetoric are difficult to predict. Trump has been railing against Merchan for months as being unfair and in conspiracy cahoots with the Biden administration to prevent him from campaigning – and nothing concrete has happened.Still, Trump’s supporters have a history of making threats against judges Trump has assailed, including death threats to Tanya Chutkan, the US district judge who is presiding in his federal 2020 election interference case, and to the chambers of the New York judge who oversaw his civil fraud trial.Trump believes – correctly – that the ultimate decision with sentencing rests with Merchan, who has wide discretion to sentence him to fines or probation on the low end, to a carceral sentence on the high end, regardless of what prosecutors might request.That reasoning would be the basis for Trump to hold the judge responsible for any fallout, in the event he hands down a jail term days before the Republican national convention – even if the sentence would almost certainly be stayed pending appeal.Trump has already spent weeks railing against Merchan, taking advantage of the fact that the judge himself is not protected by the gag order. Both before and during the trial, Trump slammed the judge’s rulings as unfair and biased, and falsely suggested he was trying to stop him campaigning.Just one day after the trial, Trump appeared to open a new front against Merchan in freewheeling remarks at a news conference at Trump Tower, where he suggested Merchan looked like an “angel” but was really the “devil”.If a jail sentence does come, one of the sources said, they expected Trump to lash out in anger. But Trump has also been careful to not explicitly threaten or make foreboding warnings against Merchan to stave off prison.On Fox News Sunday, Trump said the public would not stand for him being sent to prison. “I’m not sure the public would stand for it. I think it would be tough for the public to take. At some point, there’s a breaking point”, he said, though the campaign was quick to clarify he was talking about the election.To some degree, Trump has managed to put Merchan exactly where he wants him.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionTrump was in effect found guilty of using an unlawful hush-money scheme to influence the outcome of the 2016 election, which means if Merchan sentences him to anything less than jail, it could spark backlash that it did not encapsulate the gravity of Trump’s criminal conduct.But if Merchan does actually sentence Trump to jail, the judge would be thrust forward by Trump as responsible for any fallout and any unrest from his supporters who have a history of engaging in political violence merely on the former president airing grievances.At sentencing, Merchan will have the additional decision of whether to punish Trump not just for the conviction but also his clear lack of remorse and his repeated violations of the gag order, which would be reflected in Trump’s pre-sentencing report.In New York, defendants convicted of felonies or serious misdemeanors are required to meet with a probation officer, who conducts a lengthy investigation and compiles a pre-sentencing report that the judge uses to determine what sentence to issue.The pre-sentencing report is typically one major opportunity that defendants have to make a good impression on the judge, including by expressing contrition. Trump has suggested none of that since his conviction, including by attacking the verdict the very next day. More

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      Hunter Biden gun trial: key takeaways from the first week

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      Federal prosecutors rested their case against Hunter Biden on Friday morning after days of testimony that revealed deeply personal and grim details about his struggles with drug addiction.Hunter Biden, the only surviving son of Joe Biden, faces three felony charges tied to a 2018 firearm purchase while using narcotics. He is accused of making false statements on a gun-purchase form when he said he was not illegally using or addicted to drugs, and then unlawfully possessing the gun for 11 days.Hunter Biden has pleaded not guilty. If convicted, he could face up to 25 years in prison, though such a sentence would be highly unusual given that he would be a first-time offender. It is unclear whether the presiding judge, Maryellen Noreika, would give him time behind bars. Hunter Biden also faces a separate federal trial in California on charges of failing to pay $1.4m in taxes.Here are some key takeaways from the trial’s first week’s proceedings:1. Jury selection centered on the toll of the US drug epidemicA jury of 12 – six men and six women– and four alternates was seated from a pool of more than 60 people on Monday. Potential jurors were quizzed individually by Noreika about their knowledge of the case and views on gun ownership to determine whether they could be fair and impartial.Among the questions asked of potential jurors was whether they, or anyone close to them, had struggled with substance abuse or addiction. Many said they did, as stories of loved ones’ battles with addiction unravelled over the course of the day. One said they had a childhood best friend who died from a heroin overdose, one had a daughter who was a recovering addict, and another had a brother addicted to PCP and heroin.Drug addiction plays a central role in the case, as prosecutors have delved into Hunter Biden’s battle with drug use after the death of his older brother, Beau Biden, as they seek to prove that he knowingly lied on a form to buy a Colt Cobra revolver at a Wilmington gun store in October 2018.Hunter Biden has been open about his battle with crack cocaine, and the defense is hoping that the jury will see in him a familiar and sympathetic story reflected in their own lives. A study published this month found that one in three Americans know someone who has died of a drug overdose; nearly 20% said the person they knew who died was a family member or close friend.2. Prosecutors used Hunter Biden’s memoir against himThe jury heard long excerpts from the audiobook of Hunter Biden’s 2021 memoir, Beautiful Things, narrated by the president’s son himself, detailing his descent into drug addiction leading up to and after the gun purchase.Hunter Biden and his family listened for more than an hour on Tuesday as a lead prosecutor for the special counsel, Derek Hines, played extracts from the memoir detailing how crack cocaine plunged the president’s son into the “darkest recesses of your soul”, including a story of how he tried to buy drugs from a homeless woman in Franklin Park in Washington DC.Prosecutors pointed to how Hunter Biden detailed his four-year addiction to crack cocaine that would cover the time period when he bought the firearm to argue that he was a high-functioning drug addict who lied to friends and family and ultimately broke the law. “Addiction may not be a choice, but lying and buying a gun is a choice,” Hines said. “Nobody is above the law.”Hunter Biden’s lawyer, Abbe Lowell, argued that his client did not “knowingly” lie when filling out forms to buy a weapon. Pointing to a two-week rehab visit in August 2018, Lowell suggested that Hunter Biden was not using drugs at the time he bought the gun.3. Witnesses called to the stand included Hunter Biden’s exes and daughterProsecutors said part of their case would come from the testimony of several women from Hunter Biden’s past, including his ex-wife, Kathleen Buhle, and two girlfriends, Zoe Kestan and Hallie Biden, who is also the widow of Hunter Biden’s brother Beau.Buhle was married to Hunter Biden for nearly 25 years and shares three daughters with him. Buhle testified about her ex-husband’s long battle with addiction, and how his drug use and infidelity fueled the collapse of their marriage.Kestan, who was involved with Hunter Biden around 2017-2018, told jurors about his near-constant crack cocaine use at lavish hotels. “He would want to smoke as soon as he woke up,” she testified, and described meetings with a “scary” drug dealer and hunting for instructions on the internet to cook powder cocaine into crack.Hunter Biden’s daughter, Naomi Biden, gave emotional testimony on Friday as the defense’s witness, telling jurors that she was “proud” to see her father in rehab in 2018. As she left the stand, she stopped to give her father an embrace and was seen wiping her eyes.4. Widow of Beau Biden testified about finding gun in Hunter Biden’s truckThe prosecution’s most important witness, Hunter Biden’s sister-in-law turned girlfriend, Hallie Biden, took to the stand on Thursday. The pair had a brief romantic relationship after Beau Biden, Hallie Biden’s husband and Hunter Biden’s brother, died of brain cancer in May 2015.Hallie Biden is a central part of the prosecution case because she discovered the gun that Hunter Biden had bought and threw it out. The purchase of the Colt revolver by Hunter Biden – and Hallie Biden’s disposal of it – are the fulcrum of the case against him.Hallie Biden told jurors that she “panicked” when she discovered the gun and ammunition in his truck, and described how she put it into a leather pouch, stuffed it into a shopping bag and tossed it into a trash can outside a market near her home. “I didn’t want him to hurt himself, and I didn’t want my kids to find it and hurt themselves,” she said.Early in her testimony, Hallie Biden testified to using drugs, saying that Hunter Biden introduced her to crack cocaine in 2018. She testified she stopped using drugs in August 2018, but that Hunter Biden continued smoking crack cocaine. “It was a terrible experience that I went through, and I’m embarrassed and ashamed, and I regret that period of my life,” she said.5. Biden family turned out for trialHunter Biden’s family and close friends have attended the trial en masse to show their support, even as their father’s presidential campaign and the White House strive to distance themselves out of fear of handing political grist to Republicans searching for a distracting issue in the wake of Donald Trump’s 34-count conviction last week.The first lady, Jill Biden, was seated in the Delaware courtroom behind her stepson for the first three days of the trial until leaving late on Wednesday to attend a D-day commemoration ceremony in France. Joe Biden’s sister, Valerie Biden Owens, flew in from the west coast to take the first lady’s seat in court on Thursday, next to Hunter Biden’s wife, Melissa Cohen-Biden. Hunter Biden’s sister, Ashley Biden, has appeared in court as have several of his close friends.In contrast, several members of the Trump family steered clear of the New York courthouse during the former president’s hush-money trial. Most notably, Trump’s wife, Melania Trump, and daughter, Ivanka Trump, were conspicuously absent.Joe Biden, who is in France this week for the 80th anniversary of the D-day landings, has indicated he will not pardon his son if he is convicted at his federal gun trial. “Jill and I love our son, and we are so proud of the man he is today. Hunter’s resilience in the face of adversity and the strength he has brought to his recovery are inspiring to us,” Biden said in a statement on Monday. More

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      Joe Biden says he will not pardon son Hunter if convicted in gun trial

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      Joe Biden has indicated that he will not pardon his son Hunter if he is convicted at his federal gun trial, where the prosecution rested its case on Friday in Delaware and Naomi Biden took the stand in defense of her father.When the US president was asked in an interview with ABC News on Thursday if he is prepared to accept whatever outcome arises from Hunter Biden’s trial, he replied: “Yes.”The president is still in France to make a speech on democracy in Normandy on Friday, as part of the events to mark the 80th anniversary of D-day, the allies’ turning point in the war against Nazi Germany in 1944.The first lady, Jill Biden, returned to the US on Thursday after having accompanied her husband in France and arrived in court to support her stepson, as federal prosecutors began wrapping up their gun case against him.Two more witnesses testified on Friday as prosecutors continued their effort to prove to jurors that Hunter Biden lied on a mandatory gun purchase form when he said he wasn’t “an unlawful user of, or addicted to” drugs.Prosecutors called an FBI forensic chemist, Jason Brewer, who tested a residue found on the leather pouch that contained Hunter Biden’s gun. It came back positive for cocaine, though the amount was minimal, he told jurors.A Drug Enforcement Administration agent testified about text messages Hunter Biden sent to alleged dealers.It came towards the end of a week that has been largely dedicated to highlighting the seriousness of his drug problem, which escalated out of control after his elder brother, Beau Biden, died of brain cancer in 2015 at the age of 46.But on Friday afternoon, Hunter Biden’s daughter Naomi testified in her father’s defense that he seemed to respond well to drug treatment in the weeks before he bought a gun. Prosecutors say he obtained it illegally by failing to disclose his addiction on forms applying for a Colt Cobra revolver in 2018 and illegally possessing the weapon for 11 days.Naomi Biden, 30, told the jury she saw her father in California around that time and “he seemed really great”.On cross-examination, she was shown that she had been messaging and calling Hunter Biden and unable to reach him.“I can’t take this,” she texted her father several days after he purchased the gun. “I miss you so much and I just want to hang out.”Hunter Biden has been charged with three felonies: lying to a federally licensed gun dealer, making a false claim on the application by saying he was not a drug user and illegally having the gun for 11 days. It would be more usual for such an offense to be settled with a plea deal if the defendant admits it occurred, but an earlier deal for Hunter was unexpectedly thrown out last summer.He was subsequently indicted on the three felony gun charges, which he denies. He also faces a trial scheduled for September on felony charges alleging he failed to pay at least $1.4m in taxes over four years.The court finished its work on Friday afternoon and will resume on Monday when the defense will announce whether Hunter Biden, 54, will testify.The Associated Press contributed reporting More