First son Hunter Biden has opened up an ominous Pandora’s box with his efforts to reduce his child support payments to his baby mama.
On Monday, an Arkansas judge scolded the troubled son of President Joe Biden for concealing financial information and ordered him to turn over unredacted financial records, including details about his art sales, investments and other business transactions, according to CNN.
“The ability to redact is being somewhat abused,” Independence County Circuit Court Judge Holly Meyer said.
The judge’s disclosure orders could have devastating implications for the president, whose family is being scrutinized for its dubious business dealings with Ukraine and communist China when Biden was vice president.
During the two-hour court hearing, the judge also ordered Hunter’s attorneys to submit detailed tax information.
“This cryptic hide-the-ball game isn’t going to cut it when we get to trial,” Meyer said.
Hunter, a father of five, is embroiled in a bitter dispute with former stripper Lunden Roberts, an Arkansas woman who’s the mother of their 4-year-old daughter.
At Monday’s hearing, his attorney, Abbe Lowell, said the president’s son has been paying $20,000 a month in child support since 2020 after a 2019 DNA test confirmed his paternity.
Biden had initially denied he was the father of the little girl, whom he has never met.
Lowell said Hunter has so far paid a total of $750,000 to Roberts, with whom he had a one-month affair.
The hearing was scheduled after Hunter Biden asked the court in September to reduce his monthly payments, saying he was cash-strapped due to a “substantial material change” in his financial situation.
But in order for this to happen, the judge said, he has to be transparent about his finances so the court can determine whether his child support obligations should be reduced.
FOX: Hunter Biden is “appearing before a judge right now for a child support hearing in Arkansas — but this fight could have larger implications for him and the White House, especially when it comes to the federal investigation into the Biden family’s business dealings.” pic.twitter.com/gFOkhCgWEb
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) May 1, 2023
Clinton Lancaster, an attorney for Roberts, disputed Biden’s claims of financial hardship, saying the president’s son lives lavishly and employs a team of high-priced attorneys who charge $850 an hour to fight his client in court.
“Mr. Biden claims to be nothing more than a Yale educated attorney/artist who is somewhat financially destitute and needs his child support adjusted,” Lancaster wrote in a 12-page motion viewed by the New York Post.
“However, for an artist living on meager means, Mr. Biden is living lavishly. He travels the world on the safest and most comfortable airplane in existence — Air Force One,” he wrote.
After the hearing, Lancaster ripped the president for ignoring his granddaughter.
“I think it’s embarrassing the president doesn’t acknowledge his granddaughter — who looks just like his son,” the attorney said.
Hunter Biden’s attorneys must submit unredacted, written responses by May 12, and he’ll be deposed in mid-June, according to the Post.
A trial will be held in Batesville, Arkansas, in late July if the parties don’t reach an agreement to adjust the child-support payments.
Hunter Biden’s net worth was estimated at $330 million in 2021, according to Capitalism.com.
It’s unclear if this figure is accurate, but he has been accused of being financially irresponsible by his ex-wife, Kathleen Buhle, who divorced him in 2017 after 24 years of marriage.
In a court filing that year, Buhle asked a judge to order Hunter to stop wasting their money.
“Throughout the parties’ separation, Mr. Biden has created financial concerns for the family by spending extravagantly on his own interests (including drugs, alcohol, prostitutes, strip clubs, and gifts for women with whom he has sexual relations) while leaving the family with no funds to pay legitimate bills,” Buhle attorney Rebekah Sullivan wrote, according to The Associated Press.
Hunter’s escalating child-support litigation could be damaging for his father, who has tried to distance himself from his son’s seedy business deals.
Biden has announced he’s seeking a second term in the White House.
Republican Rep. James Comer of Kentucky, the chairman of the House Oversight Committee, is investigating the Biden family and examining whether its business transactions with foreign entities compromise this president’s ability to do his job.
“Evidence obtained by Committee Republicans reveals Joe Biden lied to the American people about his involvement in his family’s business schemes,” the committee chairman said in a statement on the investigation.
“The Biden family business model is built on Joe Biden’s political career and connections with Joe Biden as the ‘chairman of the board,'” he said.
?If @POTUS is compromised by deals with foreign adversaries and they are impacting his decision making, this is a threat to national security.
Americans deserve transparency & accountability about the Biden family’s influence peddling. @GOPoversight will deliver. @HeyTammyBruce pic.twitter.com/6hr1EagR2Y
— Rep. James Comer (@RepJamesComer) May 1, 2023
Comer continued: “Biden family members sold access for profit around the world to the detriment of American interests. If President Biden is compromised by deals with foreign adversaries and they are impacting his decision making, this is a threat to national security. The American people deserve transparency and accountability about the Biden family’s influence peddling.”
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
