(WASHINGTON) Hunter Biden may have his freedom, but the son of former President Joe Biden now finds himself mired in debt, without a permanent home, and the target of ongoing attacks from the current president, Donald Trump, and his allies on Capitol Hill, according to a court filing.
In court papers filed Wednesday, Hunter Biden asked a federal judge to dismiss his lawsuit against online provocateur Garrett Ziegler because he “does not have the financial resources to continue litigating this case.”
Amid lagging sales of his art and his memoir, the younger Biden remains “several million dollars” in debt after fighting multiple federal criminal cases, claiming in an affidavit that he only sold one painting for $36,000 since late 2023, after selling 27 paintings in the previous couple of years at an average price of nearly $55,000.
“Given the positive feedback and reviews of my artwork and memoir, I was expecting to obtain paid speaking engagements and paid appearances, but that has not happened,” Hunter Biden wrote Wednesday.
He said that his “lack of financial resources has been exacerbated by the fires in the Pacific Palisades in early January, which has rendered my rental house unlivable for an extended period of time and, like many others in that situation, I am having difficulty in finding a new permanent place to live.”
A person close to Hunter Biden told ABC News that his rental did not burn down, but that immense damage to the surrounding properties had limited his access to his residence.
The affidavit chronicles a series of hardships since his father’s departure from office. Weeks before Trump’s inauguration, then-President Biden pardoned his son shortly before two federal judges were scheduled to sentence him for a pair of criminal convictions in Delaware and California, for which he faced the possibility of substantial prison time.
Hunter Biden has acknowledged taking out millions of dollars in loans from Kevin Morris, a Hollywood attorney who largely bankrolled Hunter Biden’s legal defense over the past five years. In congressional testimony last year, Morris said he expected Hunter Biden to repay those loans beginning in 2025, though it was not clear from the affidavit whether those loan repayments have begun.
Hunter Biden and his legal team are evaluating whether to continue litigating a handful of other lawsuits he filed in recent years against purveyors of his infamous laptop on a “case by case basis,” Hunter Biden wrote in Wednesday’s filing. Ziegler did not immediately respond to a request for comment from ABC News.
One of those suits targets Patrick Byrne, the founder of Overstock.com and an avid supporter of President Trump. Hunter Biden sued Byrne in late 2023 for defamation for falsely accused Hunter Biden of trying to bribe Iran while his father was president — a claim that Hunter Biden said has subjected him to “harassment, intimidation, and harm.” Byrne has fought the defamation claim in court.
The trail in the case has been repeatedly delayed amid a protracted dispute over depositions from Byrne and an FBI agent that has thrown a wrench into the proceedings.
Byrne’s attorneys claim in court papers that Byrne fled to Dubai after he was told by U.S. officials “that the Venezuelan government has a $25,000,000 bounty on his head,” and said he preferred a deposition over Zoom “out of concern for his personal safety.” The parties ultimately agreed to a remote deposition in December that was expected to span seven hours over the course of three days, though it was unclear from the court docket when exactly the deposition occurred.
In court filings as part of that case, Hunter Biden has echoed his claims of financial hardship. He claimed that because of Byrne’s defamatory statements, he has suffered “lost economic opportunities” to the tune of nearly half a million dollars, citing lost memoir sales, lost art sales, and lost speaking opportunities.
Hunter Biden’s legal team has also subpoenaed the FBI, demanding testimony and documents from an agent whom Byrne claimed on social media could corroborate Byrne’s allegations against the younger Biden. But the FBI has so far rebuffed those efforts, and on Monday the Justice Department filed a motion in federal court in Washington, D.C., urging a federal judge there to quash the subpoena.
Meanwhile, Hunter Biden remains squarely on the minds of Trump and his loyalists in Congress. As one of his first acts in office, Trump signed an executive order revoking security clearances for 51 former intelligence officials who signed a letter asserting that the emergence of data from Hunter Biden’s laptop in the weeks leading up to the 2020 election bore similarities to prior Russian misinformation operations.
During a heated Oval Office confrontation between Trump, Vice President JD Vance and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy last week, Trump repeatedly invoked Hunter Biden’s name as part of a lengthy diatribe about the Russia investigation led by Robert Mueller:
And on Tuesday, two top Republican lawmakers invited IRS whistleblowers who revealed details of Hunter Biden’s tax filings as guests at Trump’s Joint Address to Congress.
The person close to Hunter Biden told ABC News that the former president’s son will continue pursuing his art career and plans to devote himself to initiatives meant to help people struggling with addiction. And despite the sentiments in his affidavit, Hunter Biden remains in “a good place to rebuild his life,” the person said.
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