Senator Cruz is accusing President Biden of “witness tampering” after his surprise visit to the Delaware home of his former daughter-in-law, Hallie Biden, ahead of her expected testimony in Hunter Biden’s federal gun trial.

The president’s visit Sunday night came eight days before the first son is scheduled to stand trial on June 3. That timing is “rather astonishing,” Mr. Cruz said on his podcast, “The Verdict,” on Wednesday. It “raises obvious questions,” he said, and serves as evidence that the trial is designed to “insulate and protect” the president.

What’s unusual about this trial is the close ties between the opposition witness and the defense. A person can be successfully prosecuted for witness tampering even if their efforts to tamper are unsuccessful. 

Hunter Biden is accused of lying about his drug use on gun purchase forms and briefly illegally possessing at least one weapon, a handgun which Hallie Biden reportedly ditched in a public dumpster in 2018. She is one of a dozen expected witnesses. Hunter Biden argues that the case is politically motivated. 

The Sunday night visit, which the New York Post said lasted 15 minutes, also came four days before the anniversary of the death of the president’s son, Beau Biden, to whom Ms. Biden was married before he died in 2015 of brain cancer. It was also during Memorial Day weekend, a holiday aimed at commemorating fallen members of the American armed forces.

Hallie Biden became romantically involved with her brother-in-law shortly after Beau Biden’s death.

The White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said on Tuesday that the meeting with Hallie Biden “was not about her testimony. This was about the ninth anniversary of the passing of his son.”