Hunter Biden Complains Family Is Broke During Deposition
Hunter Biden says the money is gone.
After years of lucrative overseas business ventures, controversial art sales and access to circles of influence surrounding his politically powerful father, former President Joe Biden, the former first son now claims he owns virtually nothing of value.
Hunter made the striking assertions during a Feb. 9 deposition connected to his legal dispute with Winston Taylor, the law firm seeking approximately $17 million in allegedly unpaid legal fees.
“I don’t have any assets. I don’t own a car. I don’t own a phone,” Biden said in the deposition, according to a transcript released this week.
“I don’t own anything of any value other than—and I don’t know the value of it—my paintings which I painted myself,” Biden testified. “So that’s it. And I don’t even have any other assets at all, stocks, bonds, anything like that, savings accounts.”
The declaration represents a remarkable reversal for the Yale-trained attorney, who once earned millions of dollars through business arrangements established while his father served as vice president.
Law Firm Seeks Millions in Unpaid Fees
Winston Taylor sued Hunter Biden in June 2025, alleging that he failed to pay approximately $17 million in legal bills.
The firm represented him in federal criminal cases, congressional investigations and defamation lawsuits he brought against several individuals. Its attorneys are now pursuing emails and encrypted text messages as part of their effort to recover the outstanding fees.
Hunter’s current legal team released depositions from both Biden and his former attorney, Abbe Lowell, in response to the firm’s discovery request.
Biden has resisted producing the requested materials, maintaining that he has already turned over every document relevant to the dispute.
Although he does not deny that Winston Taylor remains owed millions of dollars, Hunter contends that the firm knew he lacked the resources to pay the entire bill when it agreed to represent him in late 2022.
According to Hunter, Lowell—who departed the firm previously known as Winston & Strawn last year—repeatedly told him not to worry about covering his legal expenses.
Hunter Says His Family Cannot Help
The former first son also claimed that his relatives lack the financial means to rescue him from his mounting debt.
“My family doesn’t have any money, and it’s not their debt anyway,” he said.
That assertion is likely to attract scrutiny given the substantial income and financial opportunities associated with the Biden family over decades in Washington.
Hunter reportedly generated millions through foreign business ventures during Joe Biden’s vice presidency despite persistent questions about what services or expertise justified those payments. His finances later collapsed amid years of drug and alcohol addiction and extravagant personal spending, details documented through court records and his own memoir.
The younger Biden also entered the art world, where buyers reportedly paid tens of thousands of dollars for his paintings while his father occupied the White House. The sales raised ethics concerns because the president’s son was commanding extraordinary prices without an established professional record as an artist.
Hunter, who has been disbarred in Connecticut, recently secured employment at a luxury addiction treatment center in Los Angeles. That job apparently has not resolved his financial crisis.
Biden Family’s Lucrative Era May Be Ending
The deposition has renewed questions about the broader Biden family’s finances and its future earning power now that Joe Biden has left office.
The former president reportedly received a $10 million advance for a memoir scheduled for publication in November. Former First Lady Jill Biden also reportedly secured a sizable advance for her own memoir, which was released in June and reached the top of The New York Times bestseller list.
Such advances, however, are generally distributed over time and reduced by taxes, commissions and other expenses.
Joe Biden’s Stage IV cancer diagnosis has also reportedly complicated efforts to secure lucrative speaking engagements and raise money for a planned presidential library. According to the Washington Free Beacon, some analysts believe the profitable opportunities once available to the Biden family have narrowed significantly.
For years, Hunter Biden’s business dealings raised concerns that access to his father’s political power had become a marketable commodity. His latest testimony now presents the opposite image: a man with no vehicle, no phone, no investments, no savings and nothing of apparent value beyond paintings whose worth he says he cannot determine.
Whether a court accepts that account as sufficient explanation for millions in unpaid legal bills remains to be seen.