A new story about Hunter Biden with details almost completely unreported in the U.S. media sheds additional unfavorable blinding light on former vice president Joe Biden's son. On November 20, the Daily Mail of London dropped an article, "Hunter Biden, 49, IS the father of Arkansas woman's child, paternity test confirms" (emphasis original). The revelation suggested by the title is but the tip of an emerging, large iceberg of tawdry and salacious news about Biden the younger.



Hunter Biden, July 3, 2013, at a Center for Strategic and International Studies Panel.

Source: Creative Commons license.

The opening paragraphs in the story are bad enough:

Hunter Biden is the father of an Arkansas woman's child, DNA testing has shown, according to court records obtained by DailyMail.com. Lunden Roberts, 28, has been demanding since May for Hunter, 49, to take a test to prove he is the father of her baby, despite his continued denials that he wasn't. Court papers filed in Independence County on Wednesday state: 'The DNA testing has established with scientific certainty that [Hunter] is the father of the plaintiff's child.' Hunter is not expected to challenge the results, according to legal documents.

The article goes on to review the seldom reported recent personal history of Hunter Biden since, according to the Daily Mail, he "was discharged from the U.S. Naval Reserve in 2014, less than a year after being commissioned, after testing positive for cocaine and then his name, address, and email were included when the cheating website Ashley Madison suffered a security breach in 2015." For example, duly noted is the fact that Biden separated from his wife of 22 years, Kathleen Buhle Biden — the mother of the couple's three children — in October 2015. Within 17 months, he was reported to be "dating" his sister-in-law Hallie Biden, the widow of Hunter's older brother Beau, who died of cancer in April 2015.

Kathleen Biden, in her subsequent divorce from her husband, according to the Daily Mail, claimed:

[H]e [Hunter Biden] had spent "extravagantly on his own interests (including drugs, alcohol, prostitutes, strip clubs and gifts for women with whom he has sexual relations), while leaving the family with no funds to pay legitimate bills."

The plot thickens as the Daily Mail reports a more recent update about Hunter Biden, which — considering the extensive reporting about him as part of the Ukraine scandal — is news to almost everyone:

Biden, an attorney with offices in Washington, D.C., split with Hallie earlier this year and on May 16 he married 32-year-old South African Melissa Cohen, whom he had only known for ten days. She had been living with a boyfriend up until April. He would have been dating his sister-in-law [Hallie] when [Lunden] Roberts [the 29-year old woman who claims Hunter Biden is the father of her 15 month old child] got pregnant in late 2017.

As is often the case in its articles, the Daily Mail story is replete with photographs that help to advance the narrative. The article is highly recommended.

Of particular note is the article's sidebar titled "A Timeline of Hunter Biden's Relationships":

May 2015: Beau Biden dies of brain cancer October 2015: Hunter and his wife Kathleen separate formally March 2017: Hunter and Beau's widow, Hallie, confirm they are dating April 2017: Hunter and Kathleen's divorce is finalized Fall 2017: Lunden Roberts becomes pregnant in Arkansas August 2018: Lunden Roberts gives birth to baby which she says is Hunter's April 2019: Hunter and Hallie split for unknown reasons May 2019: Hunter marries Melissa Cohen in Los Angeles a month after meeting her

(Note: The Daily Mail reported earlier in the same article that the courtship of Hunter Biden and Melissa Cohen lasted ten days. In a puff piece report on ABC News's late night program Nightline on October 17, Biden said the two lovebirds knew each other for only six days before they were married.)

Once again, a U.S.-based story with implications for domestic politics that deserves reporting here is largely ignored by American mainstream media and is scooped instead by the British press.

Fox News followed up — or tried to — yesterday. As a news release emailed to journalists by Fox News Media Relations on Thursday afternoon noted:

FOX News Channel (FNC) correspondent Peter Doocy spoke to 2020 Democratic presidential candidate and former Vice President Joe Biden during a press gaggle today in Atlanta, Georgia. During the exchange, Doocy asked the former Vice President about a court filing involving his son in Arkansas. Peter Doocy: "Mr. Vice President I'm wondering if you have a comment on this report and court filing out of Arkansas that your son Hunter just made you a Grandfather again." Former Vice President and 2020 presidential candidate Joe Biden: "No that's a private matter, I have no comment. But only you would ask that. You're a good man, you're a good man. Classy"

The transcript does not convey Biden's sarcasm in responding to Doocy's question, which is evident in the video clip of the exchange provided by Fox News.

In addition to Fox News, in the wake of Wednesday's Daily Mail article a limited number of U.S. Internet media have started to pay some attention to the story of Hunter Biden's "baby mama."

Last month, the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reported on Roberts's legal filings in a story on October 22 "Hunter Biden willing to take DNA test in Arkansas paternity case, document shows," but this development was not reported much in national media. Since Roberts is a resident of Arkansas, the Democrat-Gazette was one of the first local media to report the story.

Roberts' paternity suit, filed May 28, alleges that she and Hunter Biden "were in a relationship" and that "Baby Doe" was born in August 2018 "as a result of that relationship." According to a July 1 article in The New Yorker, Hunter Biden has denied "having sexual relations" with Roberts.

With Hunter Biden's name being mentioned as someone who Republicans would like to subpoena as a witness in the presumed upcoming impeachment trial of President Trump in the U.S. Senate, it will be interesting to see if there is much additional reporting about him.

Peter Barry Chowka writes about politics, media, popular culture, and health care for American Thinker and other publications. Peter's website is http://peter.media. His new YouTube channel is here. Follow Peter on Twitter at @pchowka.