Hunter Biden Testifies the Family Is Broke as Law Firm Chases $17 Million

WILMINGTON, Del. — Hunter Biden told lawyers under oath that he has essentially no assets, no family money available to him, and no way to pay the $17 million his former attorneys say he owes.

The deposition was taken in February and released this week. In it, Biden is asked repeatedly about his finances and returns repeatedly to the same answer.

"I don't have any assets. I don't own a car. I don't own a phone," he said.

Asked whether his family could cover the bill, he was equally direct: "My family doesn't have any money, and it's not their debt anyway."

The suit

The firm Winston Taylor is pursuing Biden for roughly $17 million covering his criminal defense, his representation during congressional investigations, and work on a defamation case. Biden's position is that the firm knew what it was taking on — that it accepted him as a client with full knowledge he could not pay.

By his own accounting, the only thing of value he still holds is a body of artwork he painted himself, of a value he could not estimate.

The arithmetic nobody in that room said out loud

The paintings are the tell. They were valuable when a last name made them valuable, and they are unvaluable now for the same reason. That is not a market. That is an access fee, and the access expired.

Then there is Burisma. The Ukrainian energy company paid Biden a seven-figure salary for board service at a time when his father was the administration's point man on Ukraine. Whatever else is disputed about that arrangement, the money was real and it was large — which makes "I have no assets" a statement about where the money went rather than whether it ever arrived.

Former President Joe Biden draws more than $400,000 a year in government pensions and left office carrying roughly $800,000 in personal debt.

What it means politically

A family that spent four years insisting its finances were ordinary and its critics were conspiracists is now, in a sworn deposition, describing itself as insolvent. Both things cannot be the account of a normal household.

"The defense to every question for six years was that there was nothing there," a Republican oversight counsel told Idiocracy News. "Now the defense is that there's nothing left. Those are different claims."

What's next

Biden won a $1.7 million defamation judgment in July against former Overstock CEO Patrick Byrne. Winston Taylor promptly moved to attach a lien to it — meaning the one confirmed inflow he has is already spoken for.

The case continues. So does the question of what a name is worth once it stops opening doors.