The Mystery Of Hunter's Finances

There's been a quasi-news story in the background for the past week that Hunter Biden has been trying to get a reduction in his child support payments to the Arkansas exotic dancer whose child he fathered. According to the New York Post,

In September 2022, Biden appealed to an Independence County, Ark., court for his IOUs to be reduced, claiming “a substantial material change” in his “financial circumstances.”

As the link indicates, the story has been around for some months. A story on the original filing from last summer quotes the dancer's attorney:

"Ultimately, this is going to require us to look deeply, more deeply, into Hunter's finances," Lancaster said. "I'm going to want to have a deposition with Mr. Biden. Like last time, I'm going to bring my forensic accountant to the deposition, unless the judge tells me I can't."

. . . In the past, Biden had presented himself as financially strapped, telling the court in a November 2019 affidavit, "I am unemployed and have had no monthly income since May 2019."

At the time, Biden said he also had "significant debts," due, in part, to obligations arising from a divorce.

A New York Times article shortly thereafter portrayed Biden as living in a $12,000-per-month Los Angeles rental with a swimming pool and a Porsche Panamera in the driveway.

The Post story from this past Wednesday at the first link refers to a filing made in the case on December 27:

“Even though the defendant has been the subject of articles by the New York Times regarding his ‘art,’ President Biden’s administration has taken measures to shield the White House from the buyers of the defendant’s ‘art,’ and the defendant was seen in New York City as recently as a few months ago showing and selling his ‘art,’ the defendant has refused to provide any information about his ‘art’ or the income derived from it,” Lancaster continued.

But there are mysteries beyond just the "art". As I noted here last summer, Hunter has been living in a Malibu, CA compound in a $20,000-a-month rental next to an adjoining luxury home that serves as a Secret Service detail headquarters for $30,000 per month. Access to Hunter's residence is closely controlled by the Secret Service, so that his conditions amount to house arrest. The $20,000 monthly rent on Hunter's house is reportedly paid by Hollywood lawyer Keven Morris, who reportedly underwrites other of Hunter's living expenses. According to that link, Morris also advises Hunter on his "art" sales. (The rental for the adjoining house for the Secret Service detail is paid by the taxpayer.)

Also according to that link, Morris also paid Hunter's $2 million tax bill, which was settled at the time his father became president. But this leaves aside the problem of Hunter's wife, Melissa Cohen, who has never had an income of her own but maintains a jet-set lifestyle. Can Hunter's art cover these expenses?

The younger Biden took an interest in art only recently, and although he had never sold a painting, his work was displayed at a Hollywood art show in 2021 with eye-popping prices as high as $500,000. He sold five prints for a total of $375,000 at the event[.]

One potential problem is that President Biden has had a history of subsidizing Hunter's lifestyle; for instance, he wired him a total of $100,000 to help pay his bills from December 2018 through January 2019. While the commingling of income among the Biden family is a potential tax issue, the question of Hunter's actual income for the purpose of calculating child support is entirely separate.

I'm not at all sure that the dancer's child support case will ever bring any of this to light, though. She and her attorney are likely using the threat of a deposition as a negotiating tactic, along with a separate petition to have her daughter by Hunter take the Biden family name:

Lunden Alexis Roberts, who reportedly worked as a stripper at a club in Washington, D.C., when she met Biden, has asked in a legal filing for her and Biden’s child to receive the Biden name.

According to the filing, the child — who reportedly does not receive Secret Service protection unlike other members of the Biden family — would “benefit from carrying the Biden family name.” It adds that the “Biden name is now synonymous with being well educated, successful, financially acute, and politically powerful.”

The suit also states that the Biden family remains “estranged from the child. To the extent this is misconduct or neglect, it can be rectified by changing her last name to Biden so that she may undeniably be known to the world as the child of the defendant and member of the prestigious Biden family.”

I've got to assume Hunter has been making his child support payments up to now -- if he didn't, it would certainly be news. If Kevin Morris, some other angel, or President Biden himself has been subsidizing the existing payments, it can only be in their interest to continue to pay the lady what she wants. The alternatives would be too delicious.