Hunter Biden moves to shield $1.7 million judgment from unpaid ex-lawyers

Hunter Biden asked a federal judge to let him keep a $1.7 million defamation win rather than see it go to former lawyers who say he still owes them millions, while claiming he is broke.

On Thursday, the former first son pressed a federal court to protect the judgment he won against Overstock.com founder Patrick Byrne. His current attorney filed papers to strike a notice of lien that would put unpaid legal bills ahead of any payout.

The fight puts Biden’s claimed poverty against a sizable court award and a law firm that says it carried him through congressional probes and felony cases without getting paid.

Winston Taylor LLP filed the lien, saying it previously represented Biden in the Byrne matter, on Capitol Hill investigations, and in his criminal cases. The firm has not been paid and is already suing him in a D.C. court for millions in fees. A lien would mean any money from the judgment goes to the creditor first.

Biden’s lawyer, Brian Sullivan, moved to knock the lien out. Among other arguments, Sullivan said the contract Biden signed, as a lawyer himself, failed to spell out the downside of a lien clearly enough.

Default win, bond, and a live appeal

The $1.7 million figure comes from a defamation judgment entered in default after Byrne did not appear to defend the case. Byrne is appealing and posted a $2.1 million bond to show he can pay if he loses. That bond keeps the money in play while the appeal runs.

Our earlier coverage tracked the same award when a federal judge ordered the ex-Overstock CEO to pay Biden $1.7 million. The new fight is not about whether the judgment exists. It is about who gets first claim on it.

In court filings this year, Winston Taylor said Biden destroyed evidence, has been “evasive,” and “continues to make invalid excuses.” The firm did not return requests for comment.

Sullivan says the firm knew the risk

Sullivan framed the unpaid bills as a risk the lawyers accepted from the start. He told The Daily Wire the firm understood Biden’s finances when it took the work.

"They took the case on knowing that he wasn’t able to pay them. They knew that was the situation. If he came into a sizable amount of money he always said he would pay, but they took it on with that risk,"

Sullivan added that hopes for outside help never panned out.

"He hoped they could do a legal defense fund and raise money, but things didn’t turn out as anybody hoped,"

He also stressed the lien is not personal to Biden’s former high-profile counsel.

"It’s not Abbe Lowell’s lien. Abbe hasn’t been there for a year and a half. We have a great relationship with Abbe,"

Lowell, a politically connected Democrat who has represented former Sen. Bob Menendez and lobbyist Jack Abramoff, left Winston Taylor roughly a year and a half ago and did not return comment requests. Sullivan’s point was practical as well as personal: if old fees swallow the judgment, his own bills may go unpaid too.

No car, no phone, and a media tour

Biden has described himself as effectively penniless. In testimony reported alongside the lien fight, he said he holds almost nothing in his own name.

"I don’t have any assets. I don’t own a car. I don’t own a phone."

That claim sits beside a $1.7 million judgment and a $2.1 million bond posted by the man who lost by default. It also sits beside Biden’s recent public push to reshape his image. He has been on a media circuit talking up years of sobriety and casting himself as a political voice again, including commentary that has put him back in the headlines alongside debates over democracy and hard rhetoric.

The same public reemergence has included flirtations with future politics. Coverage of his recent activity has noted him teasing a 2028 run while testing other political ventures. None of that resolves a simple ledger question: lawyers who say they stood him up through investigations and felony cases want to be paid from the one large award now in sight.

Winston Taylor’s D.C. fees suit seeks millions. The federal lien fight will decide whether that claim jumps the line if Byrne’s bond ever turns into cash. Sullivan’s strike motion argues the paperwork and the old contract are too flawed to lock Biden out of the money. The firm’s filings this year paint a client who, in their telling, destroyed evidence and offered excuses instead of payment.

Family brand, unpaid bills

The episode lands while the Biden name remains a national story on several tracks at once. Health updates around President Joe Biden continue to draw attention, including his account that radiation treatment worked as intended even as questions about timing linger. Hunter’s legal money fight is a separate lane, but it feeds the same public argument over accountability for people who spent years near the center of power.

Democratic 2028 maneuvering is already loud enough that California Gov. Gavin Newsom has publicly conceded early ground to Kamala Harris rather than risk a destructive primary. Hunter’s own political teases sit on the edge of that scramble. None of it pays a law firm’s invoice.

What the court papers show is narrower and harder. A default judgment produced a $1.7 million number. A bond of $2.1 million backs the appeal. A former firm wants its fees first. The client who won the judgment says he has no car and no phone, yet he is in court to keep the award from the lawyers who say they carried him when no one else would.

Taxpayers and ordinary clients do not get to win big, plead poverty, and then ask a judge to wall off the money from the people who did the work. Hunter Biden is asking for exactly that. The judge will decide whether the lien sticks. The rest of the country can decide what that request says about elite accountability.