Hunter Biden Testifies He Has No Car, No Phone, No Assets While Fighting $17 Million Legal Bill

Since Winston Taylor sued Hunter Biden in June 2025 over $17 million in unpaid legal fees, the case has moved into discovery, and a transcript of Biden's February 9 deposition became public this week.

In it, Biden testified he has almost nothing to his name.

"I don't have any assets. I don't own a car. I don't own a phone," Biden said, according to the transcript reported by the Washington Free Beacon. "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. So that's it. And I don't even have any other assets at all, stocks, bonds, anything like that, savings accounts."

Winston Taylor represented Biden in federal criminal prosecutions, congressional investigations, and defamation lawsuits he filed against his own critics. The firm claims it's owed roughly $17 million for that work and sued to collect in June 2025.

Biden does not dispute the firm did the work or that money is owed. His defense, according to resistthemainstream's account of the filings, is that his former attorney Abbe Lowell told him at the outset in late 2022 not to worry about the bills because the firm understood he couldn't fully pay.

"It's not their debt anyway"

Asked whether his family could help cover the tab, Biden said no. "My family doesn't have any money, and it's not their debt anyway," he testified.

Former President Joe Biden received a reported $10 million advance for a memoir scheduled for release in November, and Jill Biden's own memoir, published in June, hit number one on the New York Times bestseller list, though the Free Beacon noted that ranking was boosted by bulk sales. On paper, that looks like a family with resources.

But the fuller picture, as laid out by the Free Beacon, is messier. Book advances get paid out over years and are reduced by agents' fees and taxes before anyone sees the money. The Wall Street Journal has reported Joe Biden is carrying roughly $800,000 in personal debt and facing higher property taxes on his $2.7 million Delaware home. He still collects more than $400,000 a year in federal pensions, according to ZeroHedge's account, but the post-presidency speaking-fee circuit that fattened past presidents' bank accounts has largely dried up for him. Few institutions are booking Biden for paid appearances, and his fundraising for a presidential library has struggled.

So it's possible for both things to be true: the extended Biden family has multi-million-dollar book deals on paper, and none of that cash is sitting in an account ready to bail out Hunter. Whether "we don't have money" and "we have money but it's tied up and it's not our debt" amount to the same defense is a fair question the deposition doesn't resolve.

A steep fall for a Yale lawyer

Hunter Biden built a legal career and, later, a lucrative consulting and board-seat business trading substantially on his father's political position, particularly during Joe Biden's vice presidency. That income evaporated, as Jonathan Turley wrote for ZeroHedge, once his father left the White House and the market for access to the Biden family cooled off. Turley's piece calls this outcome predictable, arguing Hunter's earning power was never really about his own credentials.

Hunter has spoken publicly about years of addiction to crack cocaine and alcohol, and the Free Beacon's reporting notes he spent heavily on luxury hotels, drugs, and jewelry for his then-girlfriend, his late brother's widow, during that period. He recently took a job at an addiction treatment facility in Los Angeles, according to all three outlets citing the deposition.

What's still contested

Biden's current legal team released both his deposition and one from Lowell specifically to push back against a Winston Taylor discovery request. The firm wants Biden's emails and encrypted text messages to help it recover the money. Biden is fighting that request, arguing he's already turned over what's relevant.

No court has yet ruled on the merits of who owes what, or whether Biden's claim that Lowell waived concern over payment upfront will hold up as a legal defense. The discovery dispute over the emails and texts remains unresolved, and that fight, not the $17 million bill itself, is what's currently in front of the judge.