Hunter Biden's first criminal trial begins Monday, but he quietly has been in and out of courtrooms since 2019 in a messy, multimillion-dollar civil case involving unpaid alimony to his ex-wife Kathleen Buhle, according to court documents.
Why it matters: Buhle is likely to testify about Hunter's drug use and finances in both of his upcoming trials over gun and tax charges, which will unfold in the final months of his father's campaign for re-election.
- The trials — the gun case that starts Monday in Delaware and the tax case set for Sept. 5 in California — are likely to include embarrassing revelations about the Biden family that almost certainly will be touted by Republicans in light of Donald Trump's felony conviction.
- Hunter's myriad legal problems — including the divorce case with Buhle — have led his allies to reconsider starting a legal fund for him, despite concerns by Biden aides about the political optics of it.
Zoom in: Court records obtained by Axios detail the dispute cited in the indictment charging Hunter with tax crimes.
- On Jan. 29, 2021 — just after President Biden's inauguration and following a year-and-a-half of legal jousting — a D.C. court found Hunter was in breach of his divorce agreement and owed Buhle more than $1.7 million in spousal support, legal fees and interest since their 2017 divorce.
- Buhle had filed her civil suit in June 2019 — about a week after news broke that Hunter had abruptly remarried and as Joe Biden was beginning his presidential campaign.
By the numbers: Their divorce agreement called for Hunter to pay Buhle $37,000 a month plus 50% of anything he made over $875,000 annually, according to documents filed in D.C. Superior Court retrieved by Axios.
- Hunter didn't pay the additional spousal support he owed in 2017 and 2018, when he earned $2.4 million and $2.1 million, respectively, according to the court documents.
- As a result, the court determined he owed Buhle $1.1 million plus 6% interest for 2017 and 2018.
- Hunter also largely stopped paying Buhle's monthly alimony after she filed her lawsuit in June 2019, adding to his unpaid debts.
- His lawyers argued he wanted to pay Buhle but no longer had the money after his spiral into drug addiction.
The legal battle grew increasingly hostile in 2019 and 2020, during Joe Biden's presidential campaign.
- After Hunter didn't pay most of a court-ordered $259,000 plus interest by an April 15, 2020 deadline, Buhle's lawyer asked the court to hold Hunter in contempt.
- That June, the court reprimanded Hunter and said he was trying "to simply delay resolution — and the payment of amounts agreed to several months ago — for as long as possible. This court rejects those efforts."
Later that summer, Hunter's lawyers insinuated that Buhle was blackmailing Hunter with the threat to embarrass Biden's presidential campaign.
- "It is likely hoped that there will be some financial intervention, funded by some third-party, to help Mr. Biden with these obligations, in an effort to avoid the anticipated embarrassment to his father's presidential campaign," Hunter's lawyer Sarah Mancinelli wrote in July 2020.
- "There will be no intervention satisfying Mr. Biden's obligations," she added.
Zoom out: In November 2021, the court appointed a special master — former D.C. Superior Court Chief Judge Robert Morin — to help adjudicate the dispute.
- Buhle's lawyers have argued Hunter has slow-walked that process too.
- In April 2023 Buhle's representative filed a blistering motion stating that the president's son had continued to not pay alimony and paid her only $35,815.50 in 2022 when Morin was controlling the process.
- Buhle's lawyer Wendy Schwartz wrote that Hunter owed Buhle more than $2.9 million.
Schwartz argued that Hunter had borrowed "millions of dollars to pay federal back taxes and accumulated child support (and attorney fees) in Arkansas," related to a child Hunter had with another woman.
- "Ms. Buhle previously told this court that the expense and emotional toll this has had on her is enormous and appears to be never-ending. Those feelings have not changed," Schwartz wrote in the April 2023 filing, the most recent one provided to Axios.
What they're saying: Hunter, Buhle, Morin, and the White House declined to comment.
