Hunter Biden paternity ruling lifts lid on Biden family finances

Hunter Biden’s paternity case over a daughter he doesn’t remember fathering may expose extensive financial dealings of the Biden family.

Hunter Biden carries his son Beau alongside his wife Melissa Cohen, as they disembark from Marine One at the White House. Picture: AFP.

President Biden’s son Hunter has been ordered to answer far-reaching questions about his finances by a judge in a paternity case over a daughter he says he cannot remember fathering.

Biden, 53, is also resisting moves for the family name to be used by the four-year-old girl after Lunden Roberts, her mother, petitioned the court in Arkansas to allow her to use it.

The case has the potential to expose extensive financial dealings of the Biden family after Roberts filed motions for disclosure of Hunter’s income and outgoings, including payments to or from his father and his uncle James Biden, an occasional business partner.

Hunter has never met the girl, Navy, and denied she was his until DNA tests proved he was the father. Joe Biden does not recognise her as his granddaughter, telling children at a public event last week that he had six, not seven, grandchildren that he was “crazy” about.

Hunter Biden, who has five children, was ordered to appear before a judge in Arkansas after failing to provide financial information to back up his attempt to reduce payments agreed in an out-of-court settlement with Roberts in 2019. He was given until next month to provide his financial information.

Lunden Roberts first sued Hunter Biden in 2019.

Abbe Lowell, Biden’s lawyer, told the court that Biden is paying Roberts about $20,000 a month, with a total of $750,000 over the child’s life so far. Roberts’s lawyers are calling for details of Hunter Biden’s income from his artwork and also his business dealings in Ukraine and China as part of an assessment of whether he can afford to keep up the payments.

In her motion calling for her daughter to “benefit from carrying the Biden family name”, Roberts argued that it was “now synonymous with being well-educated, successful, financially acute, and politically powerful”.

Rejecting the call, Biden’s lawyers argue that it would be better for the child to be protected from publicity surrounding the name if she wanted to enjoy a “peaceful existence” and they demanded “strict proof that such a request is in the best interest of the child”.

Hunter Biden has three adult daughters with his former wife, Kathleen Buhle, and a three-year-old son with his second wife, Melissa Cohen.

Navy was born in August 2018 but her connection to the Biden family was not known until Roberts filed a paternity suit in May 2019. Holly Meyer, the Independence County circuit judge, ruled in January 2020 that DNA testing showed Biden was the father “with near-scientific certainty”.

Hunter reached an out-of-court agreement to settle child support in March 2020. The case was reopened last September after he asked for changes to child support payments, claiming a “substantial material change” in income making the agreed payments unaffordable.

Meyer ruled last week that Biden and Roberts had to be present for every hearing in the case after he missed several filing deadlines. A full trial is scheduled for July 24.

Hunter Biden is also being investigated by a federal grand jury in Delaware over tax charges and whether he made a false statement in connection with a gun purchase. He is also facing investigation by Republicans in Congress over emails on a laptop that appear to tie his father to his business activities, despite Joe Biden’s denial of involvement.

The Times