Hunter Biden ignored baby mama during pregnancy, texts reveal.

The Hunter Biden Child Support Case: A Look Inside

“In hopes that you even read this- Baby was born Aug 28. Beautiful & Healthy,” she wrote in a text on Oct. 16, 2018. “If you ever become curious and want to know more I can send pictures, details, or whatever you may request.”

“I know that’s a long shot and you’d much rather avoid the whole situation,” she added, “but just wanted you to know the door is always open for you in the baby’s life.”

Biden never responded. But years later, Roberts and their four-year-old daughter—whom President Joe Biden has refused to publicly acknowledge as his grandchild—have become an issue the Biden family can no longer ignore.

The Battle for Child Support

The ongoing child support case in Arkansas, which has drawn Hunter Biden into the courtroom and made national headlines, could force the younger Biden to release sensitive financial information. At the same time, several federal investigations, including a congressional probe into the Biden family’s foreign business dealings, are likely to keep eyes peeled on financial disclosures that come out of the Arkansas trial.

While Roberts has declined public interviews, court filings and text messages shed light on her battle to extract child support from a member of one of the world’s most powerful families, as well as her unsuccessful efforts to make Hunter Biden a part of their daughter’s life.

The Text Messages

The text messages show Hunter Biden dropped out of contact a few months into her pregnancy, cut off her salary and health insurance shortly after she gave birth, and declined to even see a photograph of his newborn daughter. He had initially put her on his company’s payroll, likely to provide her with health care during the pregnancy. The messages show she did not go to court to seek child support until several months after Biden cut her off from his company’s health insurance.

Hunter Biden reopened the paternity case last September, saying he could no longer afford to pay Roberts the $20,000-per-month in child support he had agreed to during his father’s presidential campaign in 2020. He is also asking the court to block the child from taking the “Biden” last name.

Hunter Biden, who initially denied he was the girl’s father until a court-ordered DNA test proved him wrong, said he has “no recollection” of sleeping with Roberts after they met in 2017, noting that he was a drug addict and had many casual sex partners at the time.

But according to text messages, Roberts and Hunter Biden were in frequent contact and discussed her pregnancy for the first few months. He added her to the payroll at his company, Owasco P.C., a perk that came with health insurance. But the text messages indicate that Biden was unhappy about Roberts’s pregnancy, and he dropped out of contact when she was about three months along.

The Court Battle

Five months later, Roberts filed a petition for child support against Biden in Arkansas. She was living back in her hometown of Batesville and working at her family’s local business, earning what the court judge estimated was “less than minimum wage.” She said her parents helped her out with “petty cash,” but Biden had “provided no support for this child” since the baby was born.

Hunter Biden “has had no involvement in the child’s life since the child’s birth” and “could not identify the child out of a photo lineup,” Roberts’s attorneys said in a filing.

Hunter Biden, who told the court he was unemployed, eventually agreed in March of 2020—a few weeks before his father Joe Biden became the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee—to pay Roberts $20,000-per-month in child support.

Now Hunter Biden is taking a more aggressive approach. In September, he asked the court to reduce his monthly payments, saying there had been “a substantial material change in [his] financial circumstances, including but not limited to his income.” He also ramped up his legal team, hiring D.C. power-lawyer Abbe Lowell, who attended the most recent hearing in Arkansas last month.

But he is also facing orders from the court to turn over financial records—including information on his businesses, investments, and financial gifts that could be relevant to an ongoing Department of Justice investigation into his taxes and a congressional probe into potential influence-peddling by the Biden family.

Hunter Biden’s move to reopen the case has surprised some legal experts.

“I’m really astonished that 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,” former federal prosecutor Elie Honig told CNN in March.

That risk seemed to grow this week, after Arkansas Circuit Court judge Holly Meyer ordered Biden to appear on July 10 to defend himself against potential contempt charges. Roberts’s lawyers have asked the court to hold Biden in contempt for allegedly failing to turn over complete financial records.