BATESVILLE, Ark. (CN) – A DNA test established “with scientific certainty” that Hunter Biden is the father of an Arkansas baby at the center of a paternity suit, despite his previous denials that the 1-year-old was his.
Biden, the son of former Vice President Joe Biden, is not expected to challenge the results of the DNA test performed earlier this month in Oklahoma City, according to court documents filed Wednesday in Independence County, Arkansas.
Attorneys for the child’s mother, Lunden Alexis Roberts, asked Judge Don McSpadden to enter a paternity order finding Biden to be “the natural and legal father of the child." A hearing is scheduled for Dec. 2 in Batesville.
Roberts, 28, filed her claim in May seeking to establish paternity of her child, identified in court documents as “Baby Doe,” who was born in August 2018. She is also asking for an order setting child support and health insurance for the child, and for Biden to pay $11,057 in legal fees to attorneys Clint and Jennifer Lancaster.
Roberts said in her September motion for DNA testing that Biden “has verbally admitted” to her that he is the father, while denying “to the media and the court that he is the father of the child in this case.”
Biden, 49, denied the allegations but agreed to a paternity test last month.
The confirmed DNA test makes the 15-month-old Arkansas baby the sixth grandchild of 2020 Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden, a frontrunner in most national polls and fixture of American politics who served as Barack Obama’s vice president and Delaware’s longtime U.S. Senator. The former VP turned 77 on Wednesday.
“He is considered by some to be the person most likely to win his party’s nomination and challenge President Trump on the ballot in 2020,” Roberts’ attorneys wrote in a Nov. 20 motion asking to seal the baby’s full name and date of birth.
Notably, the motion asks only to exclude the child’s identifying information from public view, not to seal access to case documents.
The Lancasters said this was “the least restrictive action that will both protect the public’s access to court records while also providing protection for Baby Doe, the child’s family, and those who interact and love Baby Doe.”
Attorneys for Biden did not respond to a request for comment Thursday morning.
The paternity suit was filed before Biden’s work at a Ukrainian energy company put him at the heart of President Donald Trump’s impeachment inquiry. House Republicans pushed for him to testify as part of the inquiry, but House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff has refused to call him as a witness.
Roberts, a 2014 graduate of Arkansas State University and a star college basketball player, met Biden in Washington, D.C., while pursuing a graduate degree at George Washington University.
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