Hunter Biden, the embattled son of President Joe Biden, appeared in person at the Independence County Courthouse on Monday for a hearing related to his Arkansas paternity case.
The child, known in court filings as Baby Doe, was born in 2018. The following year, Lunden Alexis Roberts filed a paternity claim alleging that Hunter Biden was the father of her child. A DNA test later confirmed it, Circuit Judge Holly Meyer ruled in January 2020. In March of that year, the parties agreed to a settlement, but last year Hunter Biden asked the court to adjust his child support payments, which reopened the case.
In a normal child-support case, the thought of dozens of reporters and citizens showing up to watch a hearing that was, essentially, a dispute over each side’s answers to certain discovery questions would be absurd. This case however involves Hunter Biden and that makes it anything but a “normal child-support case.”
That this case was not typical for Arkansas’s second-oldest municipality was evident from the moment one arrived at the Independence County Courthouse, where several onlookers watched as CNN and other media outlets set up vans and antennae and microphones. Photographers and videographers who were unable to find a good vantage point at the front of the building milled about on the sides of the courthouse, looking for an angle that might allow for a glimpse of the younger Biden. Meanwhile, behind the courthouse, police had the dilapidated gravel-and-asphalt parking lot roped off, forcing the small throng of people who hoped to get a glimpse of the defendant to remain on the sidewalk.
Inside, 40 or so people spread out among the church-style pews in the unexpectedly spacious courtroom. Of those, it appeared that maybe one-third were there in some sort of reporting capacity, with the remainder of the gallery composed of people there in support of the plaintiff, Lunden Roberts, or just there out of morbid curiosity due to the involvement of Biden. Roberts’ lawyers — Clint and Jennifer Lancaster, who worked on behalf of Donald Trump’s efforts to have the 2020 presidential election overturned— flanked their client at the plaintiff’s table. To their immediate left, seated at the defendant’s table, were Brent Langdon (Biden’s attorney from Texarkana, Texas), David Lowell (Biden’s attorney from Washington D.C.), and Biden, with all three men in nearly matching dark charcoal suits.
Judge Meyer entered the courtroom just after 9 a.m. and, after admonishing the gallery that there was to be no recording of any kind and that she would not tolerate any outbursts from the crowd, she explained that the purpose of the hearing was to address certain pending motions, to make any record that the parties wished to make regarding recent motions that had been ruled upon already, to resolve all remaining discovery disputes, and to generally ensure that the case was progressing in accordance with her scheduling orders.
The first two matters before the court took almost no time. Meyer had recently entered an interlocutory order following a telephone hearing on April 24, and Biden’s legal team had objected to the order, drafted by Clint Lancaster, as being unnecessary and duplicative in light of subsequent rulings. When asked if they would like to add anything to the record regarding the entry of that order, Biden’s team noted only that they believed that the order “overlapped” the provisions in other orders. Meyer noted this objection for the record and moved on to a procedural motion to admit Lowell, the D.C.-based attorney who had served as House Minority Counsel to the House of Representatives during the Bill Clinton impeachment, to practice in Arkansas for purposes of this specific case.
Lancaster, when asked if he had any objection to this admission of Lowell, snarked, “I didn’t know Winston & Strawn did child-support cases, but we’re glad to have him.” A few moments later, Lowell retorted, “Lawyers do what their clients need, wherever they are needed.” “That does seem to be the job description,” Meyer responded, in a tone that conveyed how uninterested she was in listening to lawyers snipe at one another, before ruling that Lowell’s motion for pro hac vice admission was granted without objection.
Meyer then turned to the plaintiff’s motion to unseal a motion for clarification that the defendant had filed under seal in December. Biden’s team contended that the pleading was filed under seal in accordance with the judge’s earlier protective orders. Meyer quickly shut down that argument, however, noting that filing pleadings under seal and filing pleadings with redacted material was “being somewhat abused” in the case, especially by “Mr. Biden’s counsel,” who were sealing or redacting “things that don’t contain confidential information.” Meyer gave two examples, quoting from redacted pleadings filed by the Biden team, before explaining, “nothing in these motions is confidential.”
Biden’s attorney “admit[ted to] being overzealous” in their redactions, but said it was “in an effort to comply with the court’s orders” and that the redactions were “not always to [their] client’s benefit.” Regardless, Meyer ordered that the defendant file unredacted versions of their pleadings within 10 days. (The judge was careful to explain that she did not mean that all of the exhibits to those pleadings needed to be unredacted, but that she was referring only to the pleadings themselves.)
Before Meyer could move along to the next pending issue, Biden’s attorney used the discussion about redaction and protective orders to segue into allegations that the plaintiff’s expert witness, Garrett Ziegler, was leaking confidential information to the press about what was contained in Biden’s discovery responses. According to Biden’s counsel, information that was redacted in documents that were filed on April 20, such as specific information from Biden’s tax returns, was provided to the Daily Mail by Ziegler on April 21.
Meyer did not buy this argument. “I don’t agree that [the Daily Mail article quoting Ziegler] proves the protective order was violated. You’re making a huge jump to suggest that there’s been a breach of the protective order,” said Meyer. Lancaster then asserted that he and his wife had not given any information to the Daily Mail and that he had “explained to Mr. Ziegler about the amount of doom and gloom that would come from violating the protective order,” so Lancaster did not believe Mr. Ziegler had leaked any confidential information.
Despite Lancaster’s assurances, Meyer noted that she had “a little suspicion” about how the Daily Mail would know the substance of redacted pleadings if it was not provided by the plaintiff’s team. “But we deal in facts,” the judge stated, “not conjecture and suspicion.” As the defendant could not provide any actual evidence that the protective orders had been violated, the court was not willing to assume that such a violation had occurred, especially where the information might have been available elsewhere. “I can’t gag the whole world,” Meyer explained.
Before today’s hearing, Meyer had ordered that the plaintiff’s pending contempt motion would be taken up at a later date. As the hearing unfolded today and allegations were tossed back and forth about who was leaking information, Meyer took the opportunity to address contempt motions broadly. Moving forward, she explained, she wanted any contempt motion that was filed to lay out the allegations of contempt “with great specificity” as to what the party filing the motion accuses the other side of doing wrong. Referencing Lancaster’s pending contempt motion, Meyer explained that allegations like “defendant did not comply with discovery” is not specific enough to support a contempt finding. She further instructed the parties that, along with a motion that is specific enough, a party filing a motion for contempt needs to also include a show-cause order that mirrors the “great specificity” in the motion and clearly lays out the relief sought by the party filing the motion. “At the end of [this hearing], we are starting over on contempt,” the judge stated, and anyone wishing to have the other side held in contempt would need to file a new motion and show-cause order that complied with the court’s directives.
Meyer next addressed Biden’s motion to disqualify Ziegler as an expert witness for the plaintiff, which Biden based in large part on the plaintiff’s failure to respond to discovery requests for information given to Ziegler, Ziegler’s reports and opinions and Ziegler’s resume. Calling it a “chicken-and-egg scenario,” Meyer noted that the defendant had initially objected to allowing the plaintiff to provide any information to Ziegler. According to Meyer, the defendant could not object to providing Ziegler with the information he needed to complete his evaluation and report and then seek to have Ziegler disqualified as a witness based on not receiving a report from Ziegler. Moreover, the judge noted, the defendant’s attorneys had possessed enough information about Ziegler to “write a 20-page motion” seeking Ziegler’s disqualification.
Biden’s attorney attempted to sidestep this situation by noting that they had withdrawn the motion to disqualify Ziegler until such time as they have enough information, through discovery and depositions, to be able to re-raise that argument. Meyer noted the withdrawal of the motion, but explained that it was time to “fish or cut bait,” and that, if the defendant wanted to object to providing certain information to Ziegler, their opportunity to do so was today. Biden’s attorneys conferred briefly, informed the court that they understood that everything had been provided to Ziegler last week, and waived any remaining objection to providing information to Ziegler, though they reserved the right to object to his qualification as an expert witness at a later date.
With all of the other matters out of the way, Meyer turned to both parties’ allegations about the other’s failures to answer interrogatories and to provide copies of documents in response to discovery requests.
Lancaster, going first, complained that the defendant had not provided complete answers regarding the automobiles he has driven over the relevant timeframe, the value of the defendant’s art that he sells through a broker, current and former employers, foreign money received “from China or Ukraine,” domestic money received, money received from Biden’s family members, investments held, all flights taken and hotels stayed in over the relevant time period, the location and purpose of all trips taken, money received from Kevin Morris and money received from Joe Biden. Lancaster also claimed that the defendant had not provided any documents regarding ownership of any business entities or the required bank statements from March 2015 to present.
Langdon then explained how the plaintiff had also failed to comply with discovery rules and provide proper answers to discovery requests for documents regarding the benefits that the plaintiff receives as an employee of her father’s company, Rob Roberts Gunworks; Ziegler’s resume and other documents necessary to allow the defendant to take Ziegler’s deposition; federal tax-return documents for 2022 as well as returns going back to March 2015; supporting documents (W-2s, 1099s, etc.) for all tax returns; documents demonstrating all gifts received from plaintiff’s family; the deed and closing statement for the purchase of the plaintiff’s house; titles and payment records for all vehicles owned by the plaintiff; the plaintiff’s credit report; the plaintiff’s affidavit of financial means as required by Administrative Order 10; all communications between the plaintiff and anyone else (other than her attorneys) about Hunter Biden; and documents that support the plaintiff’s request to change parties’ child’s last name to “Biden.”
Following Langdon’s recitation of the missing discovery responses, Lancaster announced, in a way that suggested he had been waiting for this opportunity all day, that he wanted the record to show that he was providing Langdon with a copy of a report by the Marco Polo group — of which Garrett Ziegler is a member — detailing that group’s “findings regarding Hunter Biden’s laptop.” Langdon responded to the effect that hundreds of pages in an unverified report do not answer the question of what specifically Ziegler relied on in forming his opinions in this case.
Rather than get into a back-and-forth on each of the discovery disputes, Meyer instructed both sides to provide complete answers and full production of the requested documents by 5 p.m. May 12, 2023. Because she had given both parties the opportunity to address all of their discovery squabbles in open court, the judge explained that, if complete discovery responses are not provided by the deadline, “orders to compel production will issue [from the court] without any further hearings,” which is judge speak for “If either of you continue to play games with discovery responses, I will make you wish you had gone to dental school instead.”
In addition to the May 12 deadline for nonexpert discovery disclosures and production, Judge Meyer made the parties set other dates and deadlines as well while everyone was in court today:
- Both sides must provide one another with current Affidavits of Financial Means and the financial worksheets required under Administrative Order 10 no later than May 12, 2023.
- All contempt motions based on discovery responses or any violation of a prior order must be filed, “with great specificity,” no later than May 13, 2023.
- Garrett Ziegler’s expert report, curriculum vitae, and all other required documents regarding the expert witness must be turned over to the defendant by May 22, 2023.
- The pretrial hearing that was already scheduled for May 23, 2023, will remain in place.
- The plaintiff’s motion for disclosures related to what Biden has paid various attorneys in this case will be heard at the May 23 pretrial hearing.
- Depositions of both parties and all witnesses will be conducted between June 13 and June 16 at the Lancasters’ office in Little Rock.
- The discovery deadline is moved to June 23 due to the parties’ collective noncompliance with discovery requirements to this point.
Trial is currently set for July 22-24, 2023, though the plaintiff has asked the court to postpone that trial date by a month or so. Meyer indicated that she is disinclined to move the trial date at this point, but she said that Lancaster could raise that issue again at the May 23 pretrial hearing. Whether she is more inclined to continue the case three weeks from now likely depends on how literally one takes the admonition that Meyer gave just before recessing for the day: “I expect this case to move, and I will ride herd on you gentlemen until that happens.”