Hunter Biden told a court under oath that he is effectively broke, owning no car, no phone, and no assets of value, even as his family collects book advances and he tours podcast studios across the country.
The former first son's sworn testimony came during a February 9 deposition in a lawsuit filed by his former law firm, Winston Taylor, which alleges Biden stiffed the powerhouse firm out of $17 million in legal fees. The Washington Free Beacon reported this week that Biden's current lawyers released the deposition transcript as part of a rebuttal to Winston Taylor's discovery request for his emails and encrypted text messages.
The picture Biden painted under oath is stark. He told the firm's lawyers he has nothing left.
"I don't have any assets. I don't own a car. I don't own a phone."
He went further, testifying that the only items of any possible value he possesses are paintings he made himself, and he does not even know what they are worth.
"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. So that's it. And I don't even have any other assets at all, stocks, bonds, anything like that, savings accounts."
When pressed about whether his family, headed by a former president of the United States, could help cover his debts, Biden shut the door on that too: "My family doesn't have any money, and it's not their debt anyway."
Winston Taylor, formerly known as Winston & Strawn, filed suit against Biden in June 2025. The firm had represented him in federal criminal cases, including the tax evasion charges that grew out of revelations by IRS whistleblowers Gary Shapley and Joseph Ziegler, as well as congressional investigations and multiple defamation lawsuits. The total tab, according to the firm: $17 million.
Biden's deposition testimony offers his version of how the arrangement began. He said attorney Abbe Lowell, a prominent Washington litigator then at Winston & Strawn, approached him after the 2022 midterm elections and offered to take him on as a client. Biden testified that Lowell reached out through one of his existing lawyers.
"Abbe had reached out to one of my other lawyers offering his help."
Biden claimed Lowell assured him the money would not be a problem. "He absolutely at the beginning said, 'Don't worry, we'll work it out, we'll work something out,'" Biden testified. He also said the aggressive legal strategy that ran up the bills, including lawsuits against the IRS whistleblowers, former Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani, and former Trump White House aide Garrett Ziegler, was not his idea. "It was all part of a whole strategy that was instituted by Abbe, Winston," he said.
That strategy included suing individuals who had publicized information from Biden's abandoned laptop. Giuliani and Garrett Ziegler had both played roles in bringing the laptop's contents to public attention. Biden's legal team, led by Lowell, went after them in court, adding to the firm's billable hours and, ultimately, to the $17 million tab Biden now says he cannot pay.
Lowell, who has since left Winston Taylor and now represents multiple Democratic figures in legal disputes with the Trump administration, was also deposed in the case. His testimony revealed behind-the-scenes efforts to find someone, anyone, to cover Biden's mounting legal costs.
Lowell said he tried to help Biden raise money through third-party donors and within what he described as the "Democratic ecosystem." He also disclosed discussions with Bob Bauer, the former Obama White House counsel who served as Joe Biden's personal attorney, about setting up a legal defense fund and even a 501(c)(4) political nonprofit, a type of organization that can accept unlimited donations without disclosing its donors, to help cover the costs.
None of it, evidently, produced enough money to satisfy the firm. Biden's public rehabilitation tour has not come with a matching financial recovery.
When asked why Winston Taylor would sue a client it knew had no money, Lowell offered a carefully hedged answer: "I don't have any evidence, but I can say that it is something that people have raised the question about." He added that his friends were "bewildered" by the firm's decision to pursue Biden for fees they knew he could not pay.
Hunter Biden's assertion that his family "doesn't have any money" is difficult to square with the broader financial picture. His father, former President Joe Biden, reportedly received a $10 million advance for a book scheduled for release in November. Joe Biden has stage IV cancer and has struggled to command large speaking fees or raise money for his presidential library, but a $10 million book deal is not nothing.
Former first lady Jill Biden likely received a substantial advance of her own for a memoir published in June. That book peaked at number one on the New York Times best-seller list, though the ranking was boosted by what the Free Beacon described as "bulk" sales. Biden's grandchildren, meanwhile, have racked up tuition bills at the University of Pennsylvania.
The family is not living in a shelter. They are collecting seven- and eight-figure publishing deals. Yet Hunter Biden told a court that they cannot help him cover his debts.
Hunter Biden himself recently obtained a job at a luxury addiction treatment center in Los Angeles. His lawyers have described him as "living abroad," though he has made regular appearances at U.S. podcast studios. Just this past Thursday, he sat for an interview on the Macrodosing podcast, taped at Barstool Sports' studios in Chicago, part of a string of media appearances that have defined his post-indictment public life.
Earlier this month, Hunter Biden won a $1.7 million default defamation judgment against Patrick Byrne, the former Overstock CEO who had made accusations linking Biden to Iran. Byrne did not contest the case, and the default judgment was entered in Biden's favor.
Winston Taylor moved quickly to place a lien on that judgment, meaning the firm wants to collect directly from any money Byrne might eventually pay. But Byrne is believed to be overseas, and there is no guarantee the judgment will ever be collected.
Biden's financial woes do not end with Winston Taylor. Lunden Roberts, the mother of Biden's daughter Navy, is pursuing her own legal action against him. Roberts claims Biden is not meeting his child support obligations, a charge that adds another layer to the portrait of a man who says he has nothing but his own paintings.
Biden's broader effort to reshape his public narrative has been relentless. He has taken to social media, podcasts, and interviews to recast the laptop story and push back against his critics. But sworn deposition testimony is a different arena than a podcast studio. Under oath, the story he told was not one of a man fighting back, it was one of a man with empty pockets and no plan to fill them.
The deposition transcripts raise as many questions as they settle. Biden blamed Lowell and Winston Taylor for the aggressive litigation strategy that generated the $17 million bill. Lowell hinted, without evidence, by his own admission, that the firm's motives for suing Biden might not be straightforward. Neither man offered a clear account of who, if anyone, was supposed to pay the tab when the bills started arriving.
Winston Taylor's discovery request seeks Biden's emails and encrypted text messages, which could shed light on what both sides understood about the payment arrangement. Biden's lawyers released the deposition transcripts as part of their effort to push back against that request. The Biden family's reemergence in public life keeps producing new chapters, and new legal exposure.
Biden's current residence, his actual income from the Los Angeles treatment center job, and the precise terms of any child support arrangement with Roberts all remain unclear from the available court filings.
A man who billed himself as a Yale-trained attorney, who lived for years on the largesse of foreign business deals, and whose father sat in the Oval Office now says he cannot afford a phone. The court will decide whether it believes him. Taxpayers who watched this family operate at the highest levels of American power already have a pretty good idea.
