OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
Hunter Biden is apparently having some financial hardship as he has asked an Arkansas court to lower his child support payments.
The son of President Joe Biden said that there was “a substantial material change” in his “financial circumstances, including but not limited to his income,” and asked the court to recalculate his monthly payments, the Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reported.
The attorney for his child’s mom, Lunden Roberts, said that they will have to take a deep look at Hunter’s finances.
“Ultimately, this is going to require us to look deeply, more deeply, into Hunter’s finances,” the attorney, Clint 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.”
“Unless he’s going to pay me to fly to California to take his deposition, he’s going to have to come to Arkansas,” he said when asked where the deposition would take place.
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.
In December 2020, Biden said the U.S. attorney’s office in Delaware was investigating him for tax-related matters, saying he was confident that “a professional and objective review of these matters will demonstrate that I handled my affairs legally and appropriately, including with the benefit of professional tax advisers.”
In May, an analysis done by NBC News of the infamous Hunter Biden laptop showed that the son of President Joe Biden made around $11 million between 2013 – 2018 while he was working with a Ukrainian energy company and a Chinese businessman who has been accused of fraud.
The documents do not show precisely what Hunter Biden did that earned him that kind of money but it does raise concerns about national security, ethics and legal exposure, NBC News reported.
“In December 2020, Biden acknowledged in a statement that he was the subject of a federal investigation into his taxes. NBC News was first to report that an ex-business partner had warned Biden he should amend his tax returns to disclose $400,000 in income from the Ukrainian firm, Burisma. GOP congressional sources also say that if Republicans take back the House this fall, they’ll demand more documents and probe whether any of Biden’s income went to his father, President Joe Biden,” NBC News said.
“No government ethics rules apply to him,” said Walter Shaub, a former director of the U.S. Office of Government Ethics who is now an ethics expert with the Project on Government Oversight. Shaub added, however, that “it’s imperative that no one at DOJ and no one at the White House interfere with the criminal investigation in Delaware.” Shaub had previously raised questions about Hunter Biden’s new line of work, selling his own paintings, which created the potential to purchase a painting to buy perceived influence, and also because the White House became involved in the transactions, arranging that none of the buyers’ names be known to Biden, the White House or the public.
Frank Figliuzzi, the FBI’s former assistant director for counterintelligence, said there is a national security risk when foreign powers like China see an opportunity to get close to someone like Biden. “It’s all about access and influence, and if you can compromise someone with both access and influence, that’s even better,” said Figliuzzi, now an NBC News contributor. “Better still if that target has already compromised himself.”
The documents and the analysis indicate that few of Biden’s deals ever came to fruition and shed light on how fast he was spending his money. Expenditures compiled on his hard drive show he spent more than $200,000 per month from October 2017 through February 2018 on luxury hotel rooms, Porsche payments, dental work and cash withdrawals.
