Naomi Biden’s desperate texts to her father reveal how Hunter Biden had been difficult to reach, repeatedly reneged on plans, and even stood his daughter up for lunch at a Hollywood hotel, in the year he bought the gun.
DailyMail.com has obtained the devastating messages between the president’s son and his 30-year-old daughter that were read out in court on Friday – which may have cost him his gun crimes trial.
The texts show Hunter was unreliable and hard to get hold of during a crucial period in the days after he bought a revolver in October 2018 – casting doubt on his lawyers’ claim that he had been sober at the time.
But other texts not read to the jury also show Naomi repeatedly reaching out to her father, desperately trying to spend time with him and connect, while he failed to reply, bailed on plans, and complained about her spending his money, despite the First Son earning millions in 2018 from his overseas deals.
While Hunter, then 48, blew tens of thousands on crack cocaine, prostitutes and luxury hotels with a 24-year-old girlfriend the same age as his daughter, texts show Naomi got two and a half months behind on rent, struggled to pay her utility bills, and was forced to repeatedly ask her father for small sums like $30 for lunch, $100 for gas or $150 for a taxi when her account was overdrawn.
The texts show that Joe Biden could have been a key witness to Hunter’s sobriety – or lack thereof – when he bought his gun and claimed on a federal form he was not a drug abuser.
Naomi Biden is seen leaving federal court in Wilmington, Delaware on Friday
Text messages between Hunter and his daughter show he was unreliable and difficult to get hold of during a crucial period in the days after he bought a gun in October 2018
Hunter told his daughter he had lunch with Joe on October 7.
DailyMail.com revealed that Joe then left him a voicemail on October 15, three days after he bought his gun, telling him to ‘get some help’.
Hunter’s defense has emphasized how his memoir, in which he admits ‘full-blown addiction’ during the fall of 2018, was not a ‘contemporaneous diary’ and was written after the fact.
But his texts with Naomi suggest Hunter started writing his incriminating book in early 2018.
Hunter’s flaky failure to follow through for his daughter was apparent throughout 2018, the texts obtained by DailyMail.com show.
In May 2018 Naomi visited Los Angeles and asked to see her father.
Hunter invited Naomi to lunch at the luxury hotel Chateau Marmont – where he wrote in his memoir that he learned to cook crack cocaine.
‘Yea let’s do chateau!’ She wrote at 11:13am local time on May 21. ‘At 2?’
‘Perfecto mundo gracias mi amigo,’ Hunter replied half an hour later.
‘Can’t wait to see you!’ his daughter wrote.
Naomi arrived one minute early and sat waiting for him. After 15 minutes she asked him what he wanted to eat. He did not reply.
At 2:53pm she told him she’d ordered him steak salad. He still did not reply.
At 3:27pm she said: ‘It’s been an hour and a half are you coming,’ following up a minute later with: ‘Is everything okay?’
At 3:49pm she decided to get the check for her meal and the untouched steak salad.
‘Hope you’re okay please call as soon as you see this. It’s been 2 hours so I’m going to get the check. I’ll leave your food with front desk. Call me please please I’m worried.’
Texts from May 2018 show Hunter’s flaky failure to follow through for his daughter when he invited Naomi to lunch at the luxury hotel Chateau Marmont – where he wrote in his memoir that he learned to cook crack cocaine
The conversation showed Hunter was unresponsive while his daughter was waiting for him at the hotel with his steak salad
A worried Naomi continued following up two hours later after he failed to reply
Naomi took the witness stand where she was ambushed with devastating text messages that blew a hole in her father’s defense in the federal gun trial
Texts appear to show they eventually managed to meet up in LA, albeit with further delays by Hunter, who told his daughter he ‘got hung up on a work thing’.
More forlorn texts from Naomi on May 23 show her trying and failing to get hold of her father to spend time with him on her visit.
‘Hey’ she wrote at 1:04pm, and ‘What’s up’ three hours later. She got no response. ‘Hey Dad’ she wrote at 2:05pm the next day, ‘Hi’ and ‘:(‘ 90 minutes later, followed by a crying face emoji.
Hunter didn’t respond until 11:37pm, writing: ‘Call me if you’re still awake’.
But it was too late. ‘I’m leaving today,’ Naomi wrote on May 25 at 11:03am.
In one set of text messages in June 2018, Hunter revealed that he was starting to write a book.
During his gun crimes trial in Delaware, his lawyer emphasized that Hunter started writing after he got sober, and it was not a ‘contemporaneous diary’ of his drugged debauchery.
But these texts suggest that Hunter’s writing may have begun a year earlier – even before he bought his gun, allegedly lying on a federal form that he was not an addict and thereby committing three felonies for which he is now standing trial.
‘Im trying to write this b (sic) book. I am goin g to Esalen Writers Camp on Sunday for one week in Big Sur at that favorite place in the world I go to for yoga and things,’ Hunter told Naomi on June 20, 2018.
‘Its hard to write- self conscious about the things I actually want to say. I know what I want to say but saying aloud even to myself takes some doing.’
Between loving messages and often vain attempts to get hold of her father, Naomi often asked him for money.
Bank statements for Hunter’s business, Owasco PC, shown in court this week, revealed he deposited $3.4million that year.
But his oldest daughter, who was a second year postgraduate student at Columbia Law School at the time, was often short of funds.
She got two and a half months behind on rent, needed help paying her utility bills, lost her wallet, and repeatedly asked for small sums like $30 for lunch, $50 to pay for parking, $100 for gas or $150 for a taxi when her account was overdrawn.
Naomi appeared to be forgiving with her dad in text messages days later reassuring him that they had ‘all week’
Months later texts messages showed Naomi pleading with her father for cash for various expenses when her account was overdrawn
In September 2018, she messaged her father asking for $100 for gas and saying she needed to pay rent and her tuition
In one example, on August 8, 2018 she wrote her father: ‘Can you put a little bit of $ in my account at any time you can I’m in Chicago and just realized my account reached 0 and can have Peter spot me but need a little for when I leave’.
On August 29 she wrote: ‘Is there anyway you can put 100$ in my account for gas? Have to wait for deposits for hotel incidentals to return and Peter has no money,’ and four days later: ‘Hey dad I need to pay rent and my tuition’.
Naomi told the jury on Friday that she and her then-boyfriend Peter drove from Wyoming to visit her father in Los Angeles in August 2018, where he had a week-long stay in a luxury Brentwood rehab.
She told the jury: ‘He seemed like the clearest I’d seen him since my uncle died,’ referring to Hunter’s brother Beau Biden who died from brain cancer on May 30, 2015 setting Hunter on another crack spiral.
‘He seemed really great,’ Naomi added. ‘I told him that I was so proud of him and so proud to be able to introduce Peter to him.’
But texts show that they had originally planned for Hunter to visit them in Jackson, and he reneged.
‘Hi wru [where are you]’ she wrote after flying to the Wyoming ski town. ‘Hi miss u,’ she added. She got no response.
By August 20, she had changed her plans and drove across the country to see her father.
Texts seem to show the meeting went well, as Naomi testified in court.
‘Love you so much dad seeing you made me so happy I’m so proud of you and proud to introduce Peter to you you’re the best dad in the world,’ she wrote on August 25 after they met in West Hollywood.
Naomi is the eldest of Hunter’s three children with ex-wife Kathleen Buhle (pictured right with Finnegan and Maisy Biden)
Naomi and her father were pictured together in a family photo shared by the president in 2019
But by September 2, after Hunter’s week of rehab and the day before he ditched his sober coach, it appears he was breaking down again.
He texted Naomi that he was ‘so tired of trying’, and complained that he was banned from seeing Hallie’s daughter Natalie alone because of his drug use, while Hallie herself allegedly relapsed.
‘I’ve tried so hard and succeeded so many times that for me to be told that I cannot see Natalie alone and everyone just lets Hallie relapse lie about it about me- im so tired of trying Naomi so tired of being told to go away- I love you so but your mom did it to me Hallie is doing it and while doing everyone else bidding im taken advantage of,’ he wrote in a long stream-of-consciousness message.
‘[T]hey see my support and what I have to do to make enough money just so they can shop at Barneys while I told I can’t be amongst them is demeaning,’ he wrote.
‘No you’ve never been awful dad and nobody wants you away – everyone loves you so much and cares so much about you and wants to see you every day,’ his doting daughter replied. ‘I only want you to be happy and healthy and thought taking time away was what you wanted.’
His then-girlfriend Zoe Kestan testified in court that she stayed with him in late September and saw him smoking crack ‘every 20 minutes’.
On October 7, 2018, Hunter, who had just flown back to Delaware, told Naomi that he was ‘at dinner with Pop’, the family nickname for Joe Biden.
He then went radio silent for several days.
Hunter’s attorney Abbe Lowell has argued that Hunter is more communicative and reliable when he is sober, and that he was both of those things around the time he bought the gun on October 12, 2018.
But Naomi’s texts tell a different story.
‘Hi,’ she wrote on October 8 at 10:09am. ‘Can you call need your help w something,’ she followed up 40 minutes later.
Four hours later she wrote: ‘What’s a girl gotta do to get your attention’, and ‘What’s upppppp’ over an hour after that, all with no response, according to the texts stored on Hunter’s abandoned laptop.
In one set of text messages in June 2018, Hunter revealed that he was starting to write a book. Defense attorneys at his trial had emphasized that Hunter started writing after he got sober
Hunter Biden holding son Beau, and President Joe Biden’s granddaughter Naomi Biden attend the lighting of National Christmas Tree in 2022
Lawyer Naomi Biden and her husband Peter Neal arrive for a State Dinner in honor of Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida on April 10, 2024
Hunter’s apparent unreliability and unresponsiveness continued after he bought the gun on October 12 – as highlighted by prosecutor Leo Wise with devastating effect when he cross-examined Naomi on the stand on Friday.
Wise read to Naomi some of the texts between Hunter and his daughter from October 17 through 19, when Hunter drove to New York in Joe Biden’s Cadillac to swap it for his Ford Raptor truck which Naomi had borrowed.
‘When r u getting the car?’ Naomi wrote to her dad at 1.45pm on October 17, 2018.
Naomi didn’t get a response until 11:44pm that day, when he wrote: ‘Are you up. Please call me.’
At 1:21am the erratic-seeming Hunter texted again ‘Where are keys to truck. Can Peter bring to 57th and 5th and I’ll trade cars with him?’
‘Right now?’ Naomi responded a minute later, apparently incredulous at the late hour.
Hunter didn’t respond, the car swap didn’t happen, and Naomi tried again the next day.
‘Hi,’ she wrote her dad at 11:15am on October 18, followed by an exclamation mark 15 minutes later when he didn’t respond.
‘Hi,’ he eventually replied after an hour, but did not text further.
‘What’s plan for cars,’ Naomi wrote at 1:43pm. ‘I’ve been calling honey,’ he replied.
‘Need Peter to come to Columbus circle and trAde [sic] with me. Really upsets me Naomi.’
‘Im so sorry I’ve been in court,’ she wrote at 3pm. ‘I’m in Brooklyn I’ll tell him to meet you there and trade right now.’
Hunter agreed, and at 3:37pm she asked: ‘Did he call?’ Hunter replied ‘No’.
An hour later Naomi plaintively asked: ‘So no see you ?!’ followed at 9.10pm by an unhappy face: ‘:(‘.
‘I’m really sorry dad I can’t take this,’ she added. ‘I don’t know what to say I just miss you so much I just want to hang out with you.’
‘Honey I’m here- and I will see you whenever you can see me. I called 15 times today and I called 10 times when I came last night,’ Hunter replied. ‘I’m sorry I’ve been so unreachable it’s not fair to you.’
Hunter’s apparent unreliability and unresponsiveness continued after he bought the gun on October 12 – as highlighted by prosecutor Leo Wise when he read to Naomi some of the texts between Hunter and his daughter from October 17 through 19
During the exchange, Hunter admits: ‘I’m sorry I’ve been so unreachable it’s not fair to you’
A picture submitted as evidence in the trial
The text message data on Hunter’s laptop does not include information on whether he did in fact call.
Naomi then followed up with her own apology.
‘No it’s my phones fault too then just text if call won’t go through and I’ll call back right away,’ she said.
‘Whenever you can see me I’ll come there’s nothing more important to me. I’ll meet you anywhere anytime for dinner or movie or shopping or museum or walk or even just coffee you tell me when and where and I’ll be there.
‘You do so much for me and I feel so guilty that I spend your money and am such a burden I don’t want to make you feel like I’m even more of a burden by in addition to all that making you feel guilty for not having time to see me when I know you have so much going on and you’re mad at me but I also need to make sure you know how much I want to see you.
‘If ever I take a break from reaching out it’s because I don’t want to make you feel overwhelmed or burdened.’
Those apology texts may have helped combat her brutal cross-examination – but Lowell’s apparent failure to dig out the messages before he put her on the stand meant that he let her leave court on Friday morning without the jury hearing them.
The apparent unreliability of her father during those crucial days struck to the heart of the defense’s case, that Hunter was reliable when he was sober, and that he was allegedly reliable around mid-October 2018 when he bought the gun claiming he wasn’t a drug abuser.
The final blow in Friday’s court hearing came in a devastating series of questions by Wise.
‘Did he tell you he was meeting with someone called Frankie?’ the prosecutor asked Naomi – reminding the jury of previous evidence about one of Hunter’s dealers by that name. ‘No,’ she said.
‘Did he tell you he had given Frankie an access code to his Wells Fargo account?’ Wise said. ‘I don’t remember,’ said Naomi.
A picture of the gun submitted in evidence in the trial
The gun store where Hunter Biden bought a revolver
Media gather outside the J. Caleb Boggs Federal Building United States Courthouse, Friday, June 7, 2024
Then she admitted that it wasn’t until October 19 that she was finally able to recover the car from her father, after two days of sporadic communication.
Though Wise didn’t show Hunter’s texts with ‘Frankie’ to the jury, he appears to have them up his sleeve in case Hunter decides to testify – which his attorney Abbe Lowell said on Friday was a possibility.
Texts obtained by DailyMail.com from Hunter’s abandoned laptop show Hunter texting a contact he called ‘Frankie’ while he was in New York on October 19, telling him he was at the luxury One Hotel on Central Park.
In later texts Hunter told Frankie he needed ‘some soft c’, added that he was ‘naked’, and alluded to having multiple women in his room.
On December 1 he texted Frankie a code and asked him to withdraw $2,000 from his business account at a Wells Fargo ATM.
Last week, Hunter’s then-girlfriend Zoe Kestan testified in court that Hunter would get drug dealers to withdraw cash for him using codes he texted them.
Though smiling at his daughter during her testimony, Hunter looked ashen-faced as Naomi walked out of the courtroom following the shocking cross-examination on Friday.
Naomi looked on the verge of tears, wiping one eye as she walked out after hugging her father.
The judge called a lunch break, and a stony-faced Jill Biden, who had been sitting in the public benches, exited alongside Hunter.
Hunter took her hand for their walk past the press in the courtroom, but Jill dropped it before they even got to the doors.