WILMINGTON, Delaware — Hallie Biden took the witness stand at her brother-in-law Hunter Biden‘s trial on Thursday and testified that she was alarmed to find a gun in his truck in 2018 and worried about what he would do with it.

Hallie Biden, the widow of Hunter’s late brother Beau, said she was cleaning out Hunter Biden’s truck at her Wilmington home on Oct. 23 that year when she came across the firearm and ammunition.

“I panicked, and I wanted to get rid of them,” she said, adding that she was concerned Hunter Biden would “hurt himself.”

She said in addition to the gun, she discovered “remnants” of crack cocaine and drug paraphernalia in the truck. She said the apparent crack cocaine remnants appeared as a “dusting of powder,” like the drug had been used.

She said she then found a leather pouch in Hunter Biden’s car that he used to store “sometimes business cards, sometimes drugs” and put the gun and bullets in there.

“I was kind of afraid to touch it. I didn’t know if it was loaded,” she said.

Derek Hines, a government prosecutor, showed surveillance footage to the courtroom of Hallie Biden pulling up to a local grocery store in Wilmington, exiting her vehicle, and dropping a grocery bag containing the pouch into a trash bin outside on her way into the store.

“I was so flustered,” she said after seeing the footage. “I realize it was a stupid idea now.”

Hunter Biden watched with a straight face as Hallie, with whom he developed a romantic relationship after his brother died, testified about deeply personal experiences the two had around that time frame.

She testified that she and her brother-in-law first became romantic in late 2015 and that they had an “off-and-on” relationship. She said she often witnessed him use crack cocaine.

The first son is facing charges that he lied on a federal form about his drug use to purchase the gun on Oct. 12, 2018, and that he illegally possessed it for 11 days before authorities retrieved it from the grocery store.

Hallie Biden described Hunter, a recovering drug and alcohol addict, as “agitated, high-strung, but then other times functioning as well” when he was on drugs. One of the first son’s defenses has been that no evidence supports that he was on drugs the day of the gun purchase and that he would not have been behaving properly at the time of the purchase if he had been under the influence.

Hallie Biden testified that in 2017 and 2018, Hunter’s crack cocaine use became “more and more” frequent. She said he tried to hide his drug use from his friends and family. 

She also testified that her brother-in-law got her hooked on crack cocaine, too.

“I’m embarrassed and I’m ashamed and I regret that period of my life,” she said, noting that she quit using it in August 2018.

Hines displayed text messages for the courtroom that showed intimate exchanges between Hallie Biden and her brother-in-law in October 2018, including messages that referenced drugs in the two days after he bought the revolver.

Hunter Biden wrote to her on Oct. 13 and Oct. 14 that he was “waiting for a dealer named Mookie” and that he was “sleeping on a car smoking crack.”

On Oct. 23, when Hunter Biden discovered that she had thrown out the gun, Hallie Biden said he instructed her first to go look for the gun and then to file a police report if she could not find it.

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Hines showed surveillance footage of Hallie Biden returning to the grocery store on Oct. 23 and rummaging through the trash bins. She said she filed the police report after that.

Hallie Biden was still testifying into Thursday afternoon.