Politics

Woman suing Hunter Biden over love child wants details about his lucrative Ukraine work

Key Points
  • An Arkansas woman who had a love child by Hunter Biden, son of Democratic presidential front-runner Joe Biden, is demanding information about Hunter's earnings from a Ukraine gas company.
  • Lunden Alexis Roberts also is demanding that Hunter Biden admit that he could have continued serving as a board member of the firm Burisma.
  • President Donald Trump is on the verge of being impeached because of his pressuring of Ukraine's president to investigate Joe Biden and Hunter Biden in connection with the son's work for Burisma.
Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden attend an NCAA basketball game between Georgetown University and Duke University in Washington, January 30, 2010.
Jonathan Ernst | Reuters

A woman who had a love child by Hunter Biden, son of Democratic presidential front-runner Joe Biden, is demanding that he formally divulge how much he earned from working for a Ukraine gas company that plays a key role in the ongoing impeachment proceedings against President Donald Trump.

Arkansas resident Lunden Alexis Roberts also is demanding in her pending paternity case that Hunter Biden admit that he could have continued serving as a board member of the company, Burisma.

And she is asking him to admit that his decision not to continue on the board was a "voluntary" one, according to her court filing in Independence County Circuit Court in Arkansas.

Hunter Biden, a 49-year-old lawyer, reportedly earned around $50,000 per month while serving on Burisma's board from April 2014 until this April.

Roberts, 28, in court papers filed Monday demanded that Hunter admit that he or any entity he owned or controlled "received money from a Chinese person, entity or corporation for foreign (meaning international) and domestic (meaning United States) investment purposes."

Roberts is seeking the admissions in connection with her application for child support payments from Hunter.

Hunter Biden's lawyers declined to comment Tuesday to CNBC about the new filing.

Trump is on the verge of being impeached by the House of Representatives because of his pressuring of Ukraine's president to announce he was investigating Joe Biden, who is a former vice president, and Hunter Biden in connection with Hunter's work for Burisma.

Trump withheld almost $400 million in congressionally appropriated military aid while he was pushing Ukraine to launch that probe, as well as another one into a conspiracy theory that Ukraine interfered in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

Trump has suggested that Hunter Biden, who had no expertise in the natural gas field, won a spot on Burisma's board because his father at the time was vice president under President Barack Obama and was responsible for U.S. policy regarding Ukraine.

Trump also has suggested there was corruption involved in Hunter's investments in China.

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In a nod to Hunter Biden's emergence as a key target for criticism by Trump and his Republican allies, Hunter Biden's lawyer has noted that the likelihood that his "private financial records will be used in an inappropriate and malicious manner for reasons that have absolutely nothing to do with these proceedings is exceedingly high."

Hunter's lawyers have asked a judge to issue a protective order for those records in the case. Roberts' latest filing blacks out references to the money Hunter earned from the Ukraine gas company, as well as other details.

Roberts is being represented by Jennifer and Clint Lancaster, a husband-and-wife legal team in Arkansas. Clint Lancaster, in an interview with CNBC, said that the paternity suit has "no political motivation" and that his firm is pursuing a normal discovery process. 

"My client just wants to get child support for her child, she is not trying to hurt Joe Biden or help Donald Trump," he said.

"Our firm has not been asked to do anything by either conservatives or Democrats," he added. "We are just litigating a child support case." 

Federal Election Commission records show that an Arkansas attorney named Jennifer Lancaster is a regular Republican donor. So far this year, that donor has contributed $1,300 to the Arkansas Republican Party.

Hunter Biden, who has struggled with drug and alcohol abuse, previously was married for 24 years to Kathleen Biden, with whom he has three children.

After separating from his wife, Biden for several years dated Hallie Biden, the widow of his elder brother Beau, a former Delaware attorney general who died of brain cancer in 2015.

After splitting with Hallie Biden earlier this year, he married 33-year-old South African filmmaker Melissa Cohen. He had met Cohen just six days before they wed.

Roberts sued Hunter in May, less than a month after his latest marriage, claiming that she had his child in August 2018 — while Hunter was still seeing Hallie Biden.

Hunter initially denied having had sex with Roberts.

But in court papers filed in November, Roberts said that a paternity test established that Hunter was the father of her child. Roberts is asking for $11,057.80 in attorneys' fees and costs related to conducting the test and traveling to Oklahoma for it.

Hunter's attorneys in a subsequent filing wrote that he was "not contesting paternity."

In that filing, those lawyers asked the court to postpone a court hearing that took place on Dec. 2.

"The only issue to be addressed at the hearing, since Defendant is not contesting paternity, is temporary child support," Hunter's team wrote.

Hunter Biden failed to appear at the Dec. 2 court hearing in the paternity case, according to local news reports.

His former attorneys, Dustin McDaniel and Jessica Johnston, told the judge in a filing submitted that same day that they had been fired over the weekend by Biden's personal attorney, whom they did not name.

Both Roberts and Biden have been chided by the judge in the case, Don McSpadden, for providing limited financial information to him.

"I do not want to have this drug out nor do I want to have to drag out the monies these individuals may have received in any form or fashion," McSpadden wrote in a Dec. 3 letter.

"It concerns me that the only information supplied to the Court so far concerning employment of either party has been unemployment or underemployment," the judge wrote.

McSpadden said that he was "going to treat this like any other paternity case" and that "my major and main if not only concern is this child."

"Hopefully the parties will see fit to look out for the interest of this child," McSpadden wrote.

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