Alex Lederman
BBC News, Washington

I was at the courthouse when Hunter Biden was convicted on three counts of illegal possession of a firearm.

All the reporters were lined up outside the door of the courthouse overflow room, waiting for the verdict to be read.

“Guilty,” we heard and ran down the stairs to alert our teams waiting outside.

No phones were allowed inside the courthouse.

The verdict came just over a week after former president and now president-elect Donald Trump was found guilty of 34 counts of falsifying business records for secret payments to an adult film actress.

I was also at the New York courthouse and the decision at the time seemed momentous to me.

What we learned in the weeks and months that followed was that neither verdict would have as much impact on the election as it did then.

Republican voters strongly supported Donald Trump, and Joe Biden’s candidacy didn’t even last until the Democratic National Convention.

With Trump’s sentencing suspended in New York, his federal indictments dropped, and Hunter Biden pardoned, that moment proved even more fleeting.