There has been only one president from Arkansas, William Clinton, but now a first son, Hunter Biden, has been ordered to appear at a courthouse at Batesville, just less than 100 miles from Little Rock. This arises from  a paternity suit filed by Lunden Roberts, who hails from the Natural State. 

Ms. Roberts wants Mr. Biden to acknowledge her daughter, Navy — and, if that is true, she is by extension President Biden’s granddaughter — as his. She wants him to comply with court orders ordaining child support and discovery into his assets. A county circuit judge, Holly Meyer, has ordered all parties to appear in her courtroom. 

The younger Mr. Biden is believed to be nowhere near Arkansas. The New York Post reports he’s been holed up in Santa Barbara wine country at the $50 million vineyard estate of Joe Kiani, a medical device entrepreneur who is a major financial backer of Mr. Biden père. 

For Biden fils, in any event, the consequences of skipping the Arkansas hearing could be time spent in an Arkansas jail, a startling prospect for someone whose father is the leader of the free world and who is more accustomed to the White House than the jailhouse.   

Ms. Roberts, who is believed to have met Mr. Biden at the District of Columbia in 2018, when she was reportedly working as a stripper at a club Mr. Biden frequented, argues that DNA evidence establishes with “scientific certainty” that Mr. Biden is the father of her child. 

Mr. Biden initially disputed the paternity claim, but did not contest the results of the paternity test and in 2020 agreed with Ms. Roberts to pay child support. Judge Mayer told attorneys for both Mr. Biden and Ms. Roberts, “From now on,” she wants “both of your clients at every hearing I conduct.” 

The next one is scheduled for May 1, at 9 in the morning. Ms. Roberts’s attorneys accuse Mr. Biden of “playing games with this court.” She petitions the court to “incarcerate the defendant in the Cleburne County Detention Center until he complies with this court’s orders and answers discovery.” 

Mr. Biden has asked the court for a recalculation of the 2020 child support agreement due to “substantial material change” in his finances. If Mr. Biden wants his monthly payments reduced, he would have to provide records to back up that reassessment, as well as sit for a deposition to further define his financial reality.

Ms. Roberts’s attorneys are likely to contest his claims of penury by pointing to recent sales of the first son’s artworks, which have been priced between $75,000 and $500,000.   

In Biden fils’s memoir, “Beautiful Things,” Hunter Biden notes that he disputes the child’s paternity because he has “no recollection” of a sexual encounter with Ms. Roberts, his memory having been occluded by drugs and alcohol. His denial of paternity ended with that DNA test, whose results he has not disputed in court.

According to Arkanas’s Office of Child Support Enforcement, “A person may be found in contempt of court if the person fails to do something that the court ordered that person to do or if that person does something that the court orders the person not to do.”

The Cleburne County Sheriff’s Office discloses that the Detention Center where Mr. Biden would be assigned should he fail to appear “has a capacity of 90 inmates.” Other inmates “from the Arkansas Department of Corrections” are “utilized to cook, clean, do yard work and work on vehicles.” Some “inmates are used to collect trash along the roads in Cleburne County.”