WHAT WILL HUNTER BIDEN BE MOST REMEMBERED FOR?
Hunter Biden Says He Owns Almost Nothing - But the $17 Million Legal-Debt Story Needs a Major Qualification
Biden testified that he has no car, no phone and virtually no financial assets beyond his paintings. The sworn testimony reinforces years of documented financial trouble, but the law firm's original lawsuit did not demand $17 million.
Hunter Biden once earned millions of dollars from business ventures, legal work and foreign corporate relationships.
Now, under oath, he says he owns almost nothing.
In a Feb. 9 deposition in a legal-fee dispute with the law firm that formerly employed attorney Abbe Lowell, Biden described a financial position that would have been difficult to imagine during the years when he was earning seven figures.
"I don't have any assets. I don't own a car. I don't own a phone," Biden testified, according to a transcript released by his current lawyers.
He said the only property he owns that might have meaningful value is his artwork.
"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," he said.
He also testified that he has no stocks, bonds or savings accounts and that relatives are not in a position to cover his legal obligations.
"My family doesn't have any money, and it's not their debt anyway," Biden said.
Those statements are striking.
They also require an important correction to the way the legal dispute has recently been described.
The law firm suing Biden is now known as Winston Taylor, following the 2026 combination of Winston & Strawn with Taylor Wessing's U.K.-led business.
But the lawsuit itself was filed in June 2025 by Winston & Strawn.
And the original complaint did not say the firm was suing Biden for $17 million.
Reuters and Bloomberg Law reported at the time that the complaint alleged Biden owed more than $50,000 in unpaid fees and interest, while stating that a substantial amount remained due after earlier payments.
The complaint arose from Winston's representation of Biden in his federal gun and tax cases, congressional investigations and other legal matters.
The much larger figure came from a different place.
In later court filings and discovery disputes, Biden's total legal-fee burden was described in the range of roughly $15 million to $17 million.
Reporting in 2026 has sometimes collapsed that total figure into the amount Winston Taylor itself is demanding in the lawsuit.
The public record is more complicated.
The original breach-of-contract complaint alleged an unpaid amount substantially above $50,000.
The broader $15 million-to-$17 million figure reflects the scale of Biden's accumulated legal expenses or debt as described in subsequent filings and by Biden himself.
That distinction matters because it changes the central question.
The issue is not simply whether a man with no car can satisfy a single $17 million invoice from one law firm.
It is how someone who once generated millions of dollars in income ended up claiming virtually no liquid assets while fighting creditors over a much larger web of legal expenses.
There is substantial documentation for that financial reversal.
Federal prosecutors said Biden received more than $7 million in gross income between 2016 and October 2020, including income connected to foreign business ventures.
His federal tax case documented extensive personal spending during periods of severe drug and alcohol addiction.
Biden later pleaded guilty in 2024 to nine federal tax charges after prosecutors accused him of failing to pay at least $1.4 million in taxes and of filing false returns.
His father, then-President Joe Biden, pardoned him in December 2024 before sentencing.
The financial collapse did not appear for the first time in this year's deposition.
In a March 2025 federal court filing, Biden said he was already several million dollars in debt and lacked the resources to continue one of his civil lawsuits.
He described a sharp collapse in two of his post-2020 income sources: art and book sales.
Biden said he sold 27 paintings at an average price of about $54,481 during the two-to-three-year period before December 2023.
After that, he said he sold only one painting for $36,000.
His memoir sales also declined sharply, and the paid speaking engagements he expected did not materialize.
The art sales were politically controversial for a different reason.
Because Biden began selling high-priced work while his father was president, Republicans and government-ethics experts raised questions about whether buyers could be seeking access or influence.
The White House announced an arrangement intended to keep buyers' identities from Hunter Biden and administration officials.
The arrangement itself drew criticism because its effectiveness depended heavily on intermediaries.
But describing the paintings as proven payments for political favors would go beyond the evidence publicly established.
No public finding has shown that a buyer received an official act from Joe Biden in exchange for purchasing Hunter Biden's artwork.
The same caution is necessary with the broader claim that Hunter Biden made his money by "grifting on behalf of" his father.
Hunter's business relationships plainly benefited from the political prominence of the Biden name, and his foreign business work generated years of ethical and political scrutiny.
Congressional investigators examined whether Joe Biden participated financially in or improperly assisted those ventures.
But allegations of a bribery scheme involving Joe Biden were never proven in court, and one of the most explosive claims - an allegation that Burisma paid Joe and Hunter Biden $5 million each - came from former FBI informant Alexander Smirnov, who was later charged with fabricating that story.
A careful financial account therefore does not need to sanitize Hunter Biden's record.
It also does not need to turn unproven political allegations into established fact.
What is established is that Hunter Biden made substantial income while his father was vice president and afterward, and that a significant amount of that money disappeared during years of addiction, unpaid taxes, personal spending and increasingly expensive litigation.
His own memoir described how money became an enabler during the worst period of his addiction.
The federal tax case independently documented lavish expenditures during the same years.
His professional status has also changed dramatically.
Biden graduated from Yale Law School and practiced law for years.
He was disbarred in Washington, D.C., in 2025 and then disbarred in Connecticut in December 2025 after agreeing to attorney discipline arising from his federal convictions and related misconduct findings.
The presidential pardon eliminated the federal criminal consequences covered by the pardon.
It did not erase professional discipline or private debts.
Biden has recently taken on work connected to addiction recovery.
In June, Peak Path Health, a high-end Los Angeles treatment provider, announced that Biden would serve as an adviser and as executive director of the affiliated Peak Path Health Foundation.
The job is consistent with Biden's increasingly public focus on addiction and recovery.
Public reporting has not established that the position provides enough income to resolve his legal debts.
That question now sits at the center of the Winston Taylor litigation.
Biden argues that Lowell and Winston understood from the beginning that he could not personally pay the full cost of the legal campaign being assembled around him.
According to Biden's deposition, Lowell told him not to worry because they would "work something out."
Lowell has testified that efforts were made to find third-party financial support for Biden's legal defense, including within the Democratic political and donor world.
The firm, meanwhile, has pursued discovery into communications with friends and potential donors and has argued that Biden has not produced all relevant material.
That is why the current dispute is not simply a collection case.
It is also a fight over what the lawyers promised, what Biden understood he would be responsible for, who was expected to finance the defense and what records must now be produced.
Biden says the firm knew his ability to pay was limited.
The firm says it provided extensive legal services under a written engagement agreement and is entitled to collect amounts that remain unpaid.
Those competing claims have not yet been resolved by a final judgment.
Biden's deposition also should not be treated as an audited statement of the entire Biden family's net worth.
"My family doesn't have any money" is sworn testimony about his explanation for why relatives will not cover his debt.
It does not mean every member of the Biden family literally has zero financial resources.
Joe Biden, for example, has government pension income and has a forthcoming presidential memoir.
The Wall Street Journal previously reported that the former president's memoir deal was worth roughly $10 million, although publisher Little, Brown has declined to disclose the financial terms publicly.
The book, Promise Me, America, is scheduled for release Nov. 17.
Joe Biden has also said publicly that treatment for his metastatic prostate cancer is going well.
Jill Biden published her own memoir in June.
Her publisher has not publicly disclosed the size of her advance.
So descriptions of the former first lady receiving a specific large payment should be treated cautiously unless backed by a contract or reliable reporting.
Her book did debut at No. 1 on the New York Times hardcover nonfiction list, but that fact alone does not establish how much cash is available to pay someone else's legal debt.
Hunter Biden also has at least one unusual potential asset on paper.
In July, a federal judge awarded him $1.7 million in punitive damages in his defamation case against former Overstock chief executive Patrick Byrne.
The judgment arose after the court entered default against Byrne following repeated failures to comply with court orders.
But a judgment is not the same as cash in a bank account.
Collection could be difficult, and Winston Taylor has reportedly sought to assert a lien against the award.
That illustrates the difference between being asset-poor and having legal claims that may someday be worth money.
Biden may own few conventional assets while still holding paintings, litigation judgments and potential income streams whose value is uncertain or difficult to collect.
His deposition speaks to what he says he owns now.
It does not settle the value of every contingent right or future payment.
The better argument is therefore narrower than either partisan extreme.
Hunter Biden's financial fall is real and extensively documented.
He once earned millions.
He has acknowledged years of destructive spending and addiction.
His art and book income later collapsed.
He accumulated enormous legal costs and now says under oath that he owns no car, no phone, no securities and no savings.
That is an extraordinary reversal.
But the details matter.
The firm now called Winston Taylor did not originally file a $17 million collection complaint.
Joe Biden's reported book deal means the phrase "the family has no money" cannot simply be read as a literal balance sheet for every relative.
And allegations that Hunter's earlier income represented proven payments for official favors remain allegations unless supported by evidence of a quid pro quo.
What is settled is Hunter Biden's sworn position: he says he is effectively without conventional assets and cannot personally satisfy the enormous legal obligations surrounding him.
What remains unresolved is how much Winston Taylor can legally collect, what financing arrangements Lowell and Biden actually understood when the representation began, and whether any of Biden's paintings, judgments or future income will ultimately be available to creditors.
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The deposition makes the financial collapse difficult to dismiss.
The court case will determine how much of the debt story is legally enforceable.
