Hunter Biden May Have Opened Pandora’s Box: Hunter Biden’s legal woes continue – and legal experts have suggested that the latest battle over child support in Arkansas could backfire.
Hunter Biden, the 53-year-old son of President Joe Biden, appeared in a Little Rock courtroom on Friday for a deposition in the paternity case involving Lunden Roberts, who has a four-year-old daughter with Hunter named Navy Joan Roberts.
Roberts is a former stripper who had a brief intimate relationship with Hunter Biden in 2017.
She was present at Friday’s courtroom session.
“Attending Hunter’s deposition would have been a strategic choice and perhaps a head game,” a legal source told the Daily Mail. “And why not? It’s harder for most people to be untruthful about a person in their presence.”
A Growing Family
The younger Biden has three daughters with his former wife Kathleen Buhle, and a son with South African filmmaker Melissa Cohen, who he married just a week after meeting her in May 2019. Hunter Biden had initially denied paternity of his daughter with Roberts, but a DNA test confirmed that he was the father.
A lawsuit was settled in March 2020, and Biden agreed to pay Roberts a monthly amount of child support and health insurance premiums that reportedly totaled $20,000. Last September, Hunter Biden filed a motion to reduce his child support payments, on the basis of reduced income.
Roberts had opposed the request and further petitioned the Arkansas court to change the child’s surname to Biden – so that Hunter’s daughter could benefit from association with Biden’s family.
“The Biden name is now synonymous with being well-educated, successful, financially acute, and politically powerful,” Roberts’ attorneys wrote in a motion in December. Biden’s attorney responded by demanding proof that the name change was in the child’s best interest.
To date, President Joe Biden has reportedly had no contact with his illegitimate granddaughter and has failed to even recognize the child’s existence.
Is Pandora’s Box About to be Open for Hunter Biden
Hunter Biden’s legal team was criticized in May by Independence County Circuit Judge Holly Meyer for heavily redacting files about their client’s financial history.
That latter fact could put Hunter Biden in legal jeopardy as he faces a House Oversight investigation, suggested conservative attorney Jonathan Turley.
“The deposition of Hunter Biden today in Arkansas is interesting because it is not clear if he has previously gone under oath directly on his finances,” Turley wrote on Twitter Friday evening. “This is why the effort to reduce child support could prove costly. The deposition is riskier due to the expanding record of transactions being uncovered by the House Oversight Committee on millions of dollars of transfers through a series of LLCs and accounts.”
Former U.S. Assistant Attorney Elie Honig also explained during an appearance on CNN’s The Lead in May that Hunter Biden may have already “opened the door” into a financial records probe “by going back into this court to others getting access to his financial documents, including prosecutors, including Congress.”
Honig stated, “So, it’s a questionable decision. I’m really astonished the Hunter Biden, given that he has a pending criminal investigation, and given that there are pending congressional investigations, would go back into this court and try to reopen this Pandora’s Box.”
House Republicans have continued to investigate Hunter Biden’s finances, and the GOP pledged to launch investigations into the Biden administration after retaking control of the House of Representatives last November. It would appear that the president’s son is making it a bit easier for them.
Author Experience and Expertise:
A Senior Editor for 19FortyFive, Peter Suciu is a Michigan-based writer. He has contributed to more than four dozen magazines, newspapers, and websites with over 3,200 published pieces over a twenty-year career in journalism. He regularly writes about military hardware, firearms history, cybersecurity, politics, and international affairs. Peter is also a Contributing Writer for Forbes and Clearance Jobs. You can follow him on Twitter: @PeterSuciu.
