Hunter Biden pays $20,000 per month in child support for a daughter neither he nor his father, President Biden, includes in their lives or even acknowledges, his attorney revealed at a hearing ordered by an Arkansas judge considering his bid to lower the payments.
The president’s son appeared in court Monday in Batesville, Arkansas, on the orders of Independence County Circuit Court Judge Holly L. Meyer, who wants to get to the bottom of exactly how much money Hunter Biden earns and whether a discarded laptop computer, which contained information about his finances, belongs to him.
The child support case is forcing a closer examination of Hunter Biden’s finances as he faces a federal investigation involving tax crimes and a congressional probe into lucrative foreign business deals that provided hefty payments to him and other family members who allegedly cashed in on the president’s name.
Congressional investigators said Monday that they plan to mine the court revelations for long-sought details of Hunter Biden’s financial records that Judge Meyer is ordering him to disclose.
House Oversight and Accountability Committee Chairman James Comer, a Kentucky Republican who is investigating the Biden family’s foreign business deals, said he wants to find out whether buyers of Hunter Biden’s artwork were the same Chinese nationals who, according to bank records, paid Hunter Biden millions of dollars for his work for an energy company linked to the Chinese Communist Party.
“That’s the most important part: who the buyers of this artwork are,” Mr. Comer told Fox News. “We fear they’re the same ones that were laundering the money into [Biden family companies], particularly the Chinese Communist Party.”
Mr. Comer also wants to learn whether Hunter Biden has any offshore bank accounts, which he would be forced to disclose in legal proceedings.
The child support case has revived questions about Hunter Biden’s discarded laptop, which contained income information pertinent to the case and disturbing photos and emails detailing a Biden family moneymaking scheme.
Hunter Biden has dodged directly admitting ownership, but he has sued the computer repairman in Delaware who copied and distributed the hard drive, citing invasion of privacy.
In a hearing last week, Hunter Biden’s attorney told Judge Meyer that the laptop does not belong to the president’s son.
“It’s not my client’s laptop, as far as I know,” Brent Langdon said.
The case also highlights the Biden family’s refusal to publicly acknowledge the 4-year-old girl at the center of the child support lawsuit, Navy Joan Roberts. She is Hunter Biden’s fourth daughter and one of his five children. She was born after his brief relationship with Lunden Roberts, 32, whom he met while she was performing in a Washington strip club.
The Biden family has never publicly acknowledged the little girl. The Bidens have excluded her name from a lineup of Christmas stockings on a White House fireplace mantle and left her off the invitation list for the traditional Easter Egg Roll on the White House lawn.
President Biden last week proudly named six of his grandchildren at a “Take Your Child to Work Day” event on the White House grounds. He left out Navy Joan.
“They’re crazy about me,” Mr. Biden told the crowd after listing six grandchildren. “Because I pay so much attention to them.”
He has never talked about Navy Joan, and Hunter Biden is now seeking to slash the amount he pays each month in child support, citing a decrease in his income.
Wearing a dark suit, the president’s son was ushered into the courthouse protected by law enforcement officers who surrounded the street and Secret Service agents who followed him into the building.
No cameras were allowed in the courtroom, and the proceedings were relayed from news outlets, including the monthly child support amount reported by CNN.
Lunden Roberts now lives in Arkansas. In a separate court filing, she seeks to change Navy Joan’s last name to Biden, which Hunter Biden is contesting.
According to court documents, Ms. Roberts said her daughter would benefit from having the Biden name, which “is now synonymous with being well educated, successful, financially acute and politically powerful.” Hunter Biden’s attorney has demanded “strict proof thereof that such request is in the best interest of the child,” according to court documents reported by the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.
Ms. Roberts said he is not involved in Navy’s life. Hunter Biden initially denied fathering the child, but a court-ordered DNA test proved his paternity.
At the hearing, Hunter Biden revealed that he has paid $750,000 so far for the care of Navy Joan.
Ms. Roberts’ attorneys, who did not respond to an inquiry from The Washington Times, argued in a recent court filing that Hunter Biden “has not fully disclosed his income sources” and is “refusing to provide the full details of his finances” required in the case.
A bench trial on Hunter Biden’s request to lower Navy Joan’s monthly payments is slated for mid-July.
• Susan Ferrechio can be reached at sferrechio@washingtontimes.com.
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