In an extraordinary spectacle, the first son, Hunter Biden, has appeared before a judge in Arkansas in an attempt to lower his monthly child support payments to a woman with whom he fathered a child in 2018. Mr. Biden says a “substantial material change” in his income has led him to request smaller payments. 

During the hearing, Mr. Biden, who arrived as part of a small motorcade and entered the courtroom via the back door, was ordered to turn over detailed financial statements about his artwork, investments, and income, according to the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. The child’s mother, Lunden Roberts, will also have to provide financial statements related to her credit reports and mortgage. All financial documents must be submitted by May 12 and Mr. Biden has been ordered to sit for a deposition in June. 

“I know everyone is working hard,” the presiding judge, Holly Meyer, told those in attendance. “I know everyone is under a microscope, but I expect this case to move.” After Mr. Biden had tried to avoid an in-person hearing, Judge Meyer demanded that he continue to show face. “All parties are to physically appear for all future court hearings in this matter,” the judge wrote. “The parties will no longer have their appearances excused.”

Ms. Roberts is objecting to Mr. Biden’s efforts to reduce his child support payments. She accuses him of falsely portraying himself as a starving artist while charging top dollar for his paintings and spending large on white shoe attorneys and a pricey Southern California lifestyle. To prove her point, she’s demanding information on the sales of Mr. Biden’s paintings; such data have been cloaked in secrecy. The art was listed for sale at high prices for a novice artist, leading to accusations that Mr. Biden was profiting off the Biden name.

Mr. Biden and Ms. Roberts, a former stripper, according to Fox News, reportedly engaged in a month-long affair in 2017, resulting in the birth in 2018 of the child, a girl named Navy Joan. Mr. Biden fils has said he was so drunk and high on drugs during that time that he does not remember the sexual encounters.

Ms. Roberts is also suing to have her child’s surname changed to Biden. Mr. Biden, who has four other children with his current and former wives, apparently has never met the child, nor, presumably, has President Biden.

Mr. Biden’s attorney, Abbe Lowell, disclosed that the first son has been paying monthly child support payments of $20,000 since his paternity was confirmed by a court-ordered DNA test in 2020. In total, he has paid his child’s mother $750,000 over the course of three years. 

Before Monday’s hearing, Ms. Roberts had filed a “motion of contempt” that could have landed Mr. Biden in an Arkansas jail. Ms. Roberts’s attorneys claim that Mr. Biden withheld evidence about his financials from the court and asked that the judge “incarcerate the defendant in the Cleburne County Detention Center until he complies with this court’s orders and answers discovery.”

What began as a fairly routine paternity dispute has now evolved into a national story that has disclosed information about overseas business deals and Mr. Biden’s lavish lifestyle. As Congress and federal investigators continue their investigations into Mr. Biden’s potential financial misdeeds, valuable information could be extracted from this small-town paternity dispute. 

Mr. Biden is facing a congressional inquiry being conducted by the House Oversight Committee and a federal investigation by prosecutors in Delaware related to tax issues and alleged dishonest statements to law enforcement about his drug use. 

The chairman of the Oversight Committee, Congressman James Comer, recently said that he and his colleagues are having difficulty getting in touch with potential witnesses. “We’ve got witnesses that are scared to death to come forward,” Mr. Comer said on Friday. “They fear for their lives. I mean, you’ve got the banks that have worked with us, they’re being squeezed by attorneys, by high-ranking officials in the Democrat Party for having the nerve to work with us to comply with our subpoenas.”

Mr. Comer also said that “dark money” groups have been cutting checks to intimidate members of CongressL “I’ll put it like that with respect to witness intimidation. I mean just look in my district. We’ve got dark money groups that are being funded through prominent high-ranking Democrat officials in Congress. Also the communications director for the White House continues to retweet things trying to intimidate me.”

Concerns have arisen recently over the criminal investigation being conducted by the Department of Justice, as well as a whistleblower report from an agent at the Internal Revenue Service. The United States attorney for the district of Delaware who was appointed by President Trump, David Weiss, is investigating whether Mr. Biden evaded taxes and lied about drug abuse in order to obtain a firearm.

The DOJ has been accused, including by an anonymous IRS supervisor turned whistleblower, of slow-walking the investigation and hampering Mr. Weiss.