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    La hija de Hunter Biden y una historia de dos familias

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    El relato que rodea a la nieta del presidente en Arkansas, que aún no ha conocido a su padre ni a su abuelo, trata de dinero, política corrosiva y lo que significa tener el derecho de nacimiento de los Biden.Hay una niña de 4 años en una zona rural de Arkansas que está aprendiendo a andar en una cuatrimoto con estampado de camuflaje junto a sus primos. Algunos días lleva un lazo en el cabello y otros pasa su larga cola de caballo rubia por detrás de una gorra de béisbol. Cuando tenga edad suficiente, aprenderá a cazar, como su madre cuando era joven.La niña sabe que su padre es Hunter Biden y que su abuelo paterno es el presidente de Estados Unidos. Habla a menudo de ambos, pero no los conoce. Su abuelo materno, Rob Roberts, la describe como muy inteligente y divertida.“Puede que no sea el presidente de Estados Unidos”, señaló Roberts en un mensaje de texto, pero afirmó que haría cualquier cosa por su nieta. Dijo que ella “no necesita nada y nunca lo necesitará”.La historia que rodea a la nieta del presidente en Arkansas, cuyo nombre no figura en los documentos judiciales, es la historia de dos familias: una de ellas es poderosa; la otra, no. Pero, en el fondo, es una historia de dinero, política corrosiva y lo que significa tener el derecho de nacimiento de los Biden.El jueves, sus padres pusieron fin a una larga batalla judicial por la manutención de la niña al acordar que Hunter Biden, quien ha iniciado una segunda carrera como pintor y cuyas obras se han ofrecido hasta por 500.000 dólares cada una, cederá varios de sus cuadros a su hija, además de darle una pensión mensual. La niña seleccionará los cuadros de Biden, según los documentos judiciales.“Lo resolvimos entre nosotros”, dijo Lunden Roberts, la madre de la niña, en una entrevista con The New York Times. “Se resolvió” en una conversación con Biden, dijo.Hunter Biden no respondió a una solicitud de comentarios para este artículo.Hunter Biden se mantiene cercano a su padre y aparece a menudo en actos de la Casa Blanca.Haiyun Jiang/The New York TimesRoberts aseguró que retiró la petición de que se cambiara el apellido de la niña de Roberts a Biden (Biden se había opuesto a que su hija llevara su apellido). Roberts se limitó a decir que la decisión de retirar la petición fue mutua. “Ambos queremos lo mejor para nuestra hija, y ese es nuestro único objetivo”, declaró.Aunque se ha evitado el juicio previsto para mediados de julio, personas de ambas partes temen que se mantenga la toxicidad política que rodea al caso. Los medios de comunicación conservadores, desde Breitbart hasta Fox News, ya han hecho eco del caso, y los comentaristas conservadores atacaron a la familia Biden tras darse a conocer el acuerdo.Tanto Hunter Biden, el hijo privilegiado y problemático de un presidente, como Roberts, la hija de un armero rural, tienen aliados cuyas acciones han politizado más la situación. No hay pruebas de que la Casa Blanca esté implicada en esas acciones.Clint Lancaster, abogado de Roberts, ha representado a la campaña de Donald Trump. También llamó a Garrett Ziegler, un activista y exasesor de Trump en la Casa Blanca que ha catalogado y publicado mensajes de una memoria caché de archivos de Hunter Biden que parecen proceder de una computadora portátil que dejó en un sitio de reparaciones, para que actúe como testigo experto en el caso de la pensión alimenticia. En la otra esquina, aliados de grupos demócratas dedicados a ayudar a la familia Biden han difundido información sobre Ziegler y la familia Roberts para destacar sus vínculos con Trump.Y luego está el presidente.Su imagen pública gira en torno a su devoción por su familia, incluyendo a Hunter Biden, su único hijo varón sobreviviente. En las reuniones de estrategia de los últimos años, se ha dicho a los asesores que los Biden tienen seis nietos, no siete, según dos personas familiarizadas con las conversaciones.La Casa Blanca no respondió preguntas sobre el caso, en consonancia con la forma en que los funcionarios han respondido a las preguntas sobre la familia Biden anteriormente.Varios aliados del presidente temen que el caso pueda dañar sus posibilidades de reelección al atraer más atención sobre un hijo al que algunos demócratas ven como un lastre. Otros dicen que la extrema derecha se ha centrado en Hunter Biden, un ciudadano que no es servidor público, pero ha ignorado las fallas morales y éticas del expresidente Trump.“Tiene más acusaciones que todos los jugadores de dos equipos del Super Bowl”, dijo de Trump el escritor y estratega político Stuart Stevens, quien abandonó el Partido Republicano en 2016. “Pero eso no importa: ahí está Hunter Biden. Es solo ira en busca de un argumento”.‘La gente se hace una imagen de mí’Lunden Roberts, de 32 años, procede de un clan tan unido como el de los Biden. Su padre es un fabricante de armas de un estado republicano, entre cuyos compañeros de caza se encuentra Donald Trump Jr., y le enseñó a cazar pavos y caimanes desde muy pequeña. Trabaja en la empresa familiar, situada en una sinuosa carretera rural salpicada de pastizales a las afueras de Batesville, Arkansas.Roberts, de 1,73 metros de estatura y el orgullo de su familia, se graduó con honores en la secundaria Southside de Batesville, y jugó baloncesto en la Universidad Estatal de Arkansas, donde, según una biografía del equipo, disfrutaba la caza y el tiro al plato. Tras graduarse, se trasladó a Washington para estudiar investigación forense en la Universidad George Washington. Nunca terminó el programa. Fotos de esa época la muestran asistiendo a partidos de béisbol en el Nationals Park y a conciertos de Drake y Kanye West.Lunden Roberts llegando para una audiencia en el caso de paternidad en Batesville, Arkansas, en mayo. Roberts y Hunter Biden llegaron a un acuerdo el jueves.Karen Pulfer Focht/ReutersEn el camino, conoció al hijo de un futuro presidente que estaba cayendo en la adicción y visitaba los clubes de bailarinas desnudas de Washington.A mediados de 2018, Roberts trabajaba como asistente personal de Hunter Biden, de acuerdo con una persona cercana a ella y a los mensajes de una memoria caché con archivos de Biden. Su hija nació a finales de ese año, pero, para entonces, Biden había dejado de responder a los mensajes de Roberts, incluido uno en el que le informaba la fecha de nacimiento de la niña. Poco después de que nació su hija, en noviembre de 2018, quitó a Roberts y a la niña de su seguro médico, lo que llevó a Roberts a ponerse en contacto con Lancaster.Ella interpuso una demanda en mayo de 2019, y las pruebas de ADN de ese año establecieron que Hunter Biden era el padre de la niña. En la presentación de una solicitud de custodia en diciembre de 2019, Roberts dijo que Hunter Biden no conocía a su hija y “no podría identificar a la niña en una serie de fotos”.Roberts aseguró en una entrevista que se había acostumbrado a la avalancha de escrutinio en torno al caso: “Leo cosas sobre mí de las que no tengo ni idea”, afirmó. Pero una cosa que no soporta es que la llamen mala madre. “La gente puede llamarme como quiera, pero no pueden decirme eso”, dijo.Su cuenta pública de Instagram narra su propia historia: “Espero que algún día, cuando mires atrás, te enorgullezcas de quién eres, de dónde vienes y, lo más importante, de quién te crio”, escribió al pie de una foto de las dos en la playa a principios de este año. En otra fotografía, compartida en su cuenta en abril de 2022, su hija llevaba una gorra de béisbol del Air Force One y estaba delante del Jefferson Memorial.“La gente se hace una imagen de mí, pero pocos aciertan”, escribió Roberts en otra foto de julio de 2022.Roberts publicó una foto de ella y su hija en Washington el año pasado.Visto desde un ángulo, las fotos son un poderoso testamento público de amor de una madre a su hija. Desde otro punto de vista, son explotadoras, desde luego desde la perspectiva de los aliados de Biden, que temen que las imágenes —y la niña— estén siendo utilizadas como arma contra la familia Biden.Por su parte, Roberts dijo que no llevó a su hija a Washington para castigar a los Biden. Dijo que la llevó a Washington porque no muchas niñas pueden decir que su abuelo es el presidente.“Está muy orgullosa de quién es su abuelo y quién es su padre”, dijo Roberts. “Eso es algo que nunca le permitiría pensar de otra manera”.Un hijo problemáticoHunter Biden, de 53 años, se está recuperando de su adicción al crack y es el último hijo varón sobreviviente del presidente, ya que perdió al mayor, Beau, por un cáncer cerebral en 2015. El menor de los Biden tiene cinco hijos y ha dicho que fue padre de la cuarta en un momento bajo de su vida.“No recordaba nada de nuestro encuentro”, escribió Biden en su libro de memorias de 2021. “Así de poca conexión tenía con toda la gente. Era un desastre, pero un desastre del que me he hecho responsable”.Antes del acuerdo del jueves, Biden le había pagado a Roberts más de 750.000 dólares, según sus abogados, y había intentado reducir el pago de 20.000 dólares al mes por la manutención de su hija alegando que no tenía el dinero. La nueva cantidad es inferior a la ordenada originalmente por el tribunal, según una persona familiarizada con el caso.“Estoy muy orgulloso de mi hijo”, declaró recientemente el presidente Biden a la prensa.Al Drago para The New York TimesCon juicio o sin él, Hunter Biden seguirá siendo uno de los puntos débiles políticos de su padre. Desde que su adicción se descontroló y sus tratos con gobiernos extranjeros llamaron la atención de los conservadores, las decisiones de Hunter Biden se han convertido en combustible para los memes, los paneles de noticias por cable conservadores y la recaudación de fondos de los republicanos. La ronda más reciente se inició después de que llegó a un acuerdo con el Departamento de Justicia para declararse culpable de dos delitos fiscales menores y aceptar condiciones que le permitieran evitar ser procesado por otro cargo de posesión de armas.Además, ha sido objeto de múltiples investigaciones en el Congreso, y el contenido de la computadora portátil que dejó en un local de reparaciones ha sido estudiado y difundido por activistas que afirman que sus comunicaciones privadas demuestran la comisión de delitos.En la Casa Blanca, los asuntos relacionados con Hunter Biden son tan delicados que solo los asesores de más alto rango del presidente hablan con él sobre su hijo, de acuerdo con personas familiarizadas con la situación.A pesar de todo, el presidente lo ha apoyado de manera incondicional. En lugar de distanciarse de su hijo, ha incluido a Hunter Biden en los viajes oficiales, ha viajado con él a bordo del Marine One y se ha asegurado de que esté en la lista de invitados a las cenas de Estado.“Estoy muy orgulloso de mi hijo”, declaró hace poco el presidente a la prensa.‘La bendición más grande de la vida’El presidente ha trabajado durante el último medio siglo para que su apellido sea sinónimo de valores familiares y lealtad. La fuerza de su personaje político, que hace hincapié en la decencia, la familia y el deber, fue suficiente para derrotar a Trump la primera vez, y tendría que mantenerla intacta si Trump es el candidato republicano en 2024.En una proclama emitida con motivo del Día del Padre, Biden aclaró que su padre le había “enseñado que, por encima de todo, la familia es el principio, el medio y el fin, una lección que he transmitido a mis hijos y nietos”. Añadió que “la familia es la mayor bendición y responsabilidad de la vida”.El presidente Biden; Jill Biden, la primera dama; y sus hijos y nietos observan los fuegos artificiales desde la Casa Blanca tras la toma de posesión de Biden en 2021.Doug Mills/The New York TimesDesde que llegaron a la Casa Blanca, el presidente y Jill Biden, la primera dama, han centrado su vida familiar en torno a sus nietos y les han brindado los beneficios que conlleva vivir en estrecho contacto con la Casa Blanca.Naomi Biden, de 29 años, es la hija mayor de Hunter, fruto de su primer matrimonio, con Kathleen Buhle, que terminó en 2017. Naomi Biden se casó en el Jardín Sur de la Casa Blanca el año pasado con un vestido de Ralph Lauren que ella definió como el producto de sus “sueños americanos”. Ella y sus hermanas han hecho viajes por todo el mundo con el presidente y la primera dama. Hunter Biden se casó con Melissa Cohen en 2019. Su hijo menor, que lleva el nombre de Beau y nació en 2020, es fotografiado con frecuencia con sus abuelos.En abril, el presidente relató a un grupo de niños que tenía “seis nietos. Y estoy loco por ellos. Y hablo con ellos todos los días. No es broma”.El hijo menor de Hunter Biden, Beau, es visto frecuentemente viajando y asistiendo a eventos con sus abuelos.Haiyun Jiang/The New York TimesPero el presidente aún no ha conocido ni mencionado públicamente a su otra nieta. La Casa Blanca no ha respondido a las preguntas sobre si la reconocerá públicamente ahora que se ha resuelto el caso de la pensión alimenticia.Sin embargo, Stevens, el estratega político, dijo que el apoyo de Biden a su hijo, incluso contra una avalancha de críticas republicanas y escándalos desagradables, solo ha enfatizado su amor incondicional por su familia.“El neto positivo de todo esto ha sido para Biden, por cierto”, dijo Stevens refiriéndose al presidente. “Ha estado a su lado”.Preocupaciones políticasPocos de los implicados creen que las particularidades de este caso, aunque se haya resuelto, se apacigüen, especialmente dada su omnipresencia en los medios de comunicación de derecha.“En otro acuerdo ventajoso, Hunter Biden se ha librado de la manutención de su hija”, escribió el consejo editorial de The New York Post, que ha seguido de cerca el caso.Aparte de la cobertura informativa y los comentarios, los aliados de la familia Biden temen en privado que la implicación de agentes de la derecha en el asunto haya dificultado cualquier compromiso de la familia.Ziegler, quien fue nombrado testigo experto en el caso, tuvo un papel destacado en los esfuerzos de Trump por impugnar los resultados de las elecciones de 2020: en diciembre de 2020, Ziegler escoltó al exasesor de seguridad nacional de Trump, Michael Flynn, y a la abogada Sidney Powell a la Oficina Oval, donde un grupo discutió con Trump un plan para tomar el control de las máquinas de votación en estados clave. Los privilegios de invitado a la Casa Blanca de Ziegler fueron revocados más tarde.Ziegler se negó a confirmar su participación en el caso de manutención de la niña.El abogado de Roberts, Lancaster, también tiene antecedentes en el activismo conservador. Él es elocuente en las redes sociales sobre su apoyo a Trump, a menudo retuiteando críticas de los medios conservadores y Elon Musk, el dueño de Twitter. También trabajó como abogado para la campaña de Trump durante un recuento de votos electorales en Wisconsin después de las elecciones de 2020.Simpatizantes del expresidente Donald Trump en un mitin en 2020. Aliados de la familia Biden temen que el caso de paternidad se utilice contra el presidente Biden en la campaña de 2024.Al Drago para The New York TimesPor otro lado, personas afiliadas a organizaciones de izquierda, como Facts First USA, un grupo de defensa dirigido por David Brock, desconfían de lo que pueda hacer el equipo que rodea a Roberts en la antesala de la campaña de 2024.Los miembros del grupo, que opera independientemente de la Casa Blanca y ha adoptado una actitud más antagónica con los críticos que el gobierno de Biden, han distribuido una foto del padre de Roberts posando con Donald Trump Jr.Roberts padre dijo en un mensaje de texto que había ido de caza con Trump, pero que no recordaba cuándo se habían conocido.El encuestador republicano Frank Luntz dijo que era “una pérdida de tiempo” que los activistas se enfocaran en atacar a la familia del presidente porque a los votantes no les importa Hunter Biden tanto como otros temas, como Ucrania y la inflación.“Tienen la responsabilidad de pedir cuentas a la gente, pero quiero ser claro: no cambiará ni un solo voto”, dijo sobre los problemas legales y personales de Hunter Biden.Si la familia Roberts está siguiendo consejos políticos —aparte de los que pueda dar el abogado de la familia—, no lo dicen. En Batesville, la abuela materna de la niña, Kimberly Roberts, dijo en una breve entrevista telefónica que no haría comentarios sobre el caso.Pero sí tenía algo que decir.“Mi nieta es feliz, sana y muy querida”, dijo Roberts, antes de colgar.Kenneth P. Vogel More

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      Hunter Biden’s Daughter and a Tale of Two Families

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      The story surrounding the president’s grandchild in Arkansas, who has not yet met her father or her grandfather, is about money, corrosive politics and what it means to have the Biden birthright.There is a 4-year-old girl in rural Arkansas who is learning to ride a camouflage-patterned four-wheeler alongside her cousins. Some days, she wears a bow in her hair, and on other days, she threads her long blond ponytail through the back of a baseball cap. When she is old enough, she will learn to hunt, just like her mother did when she was young.The girl is aware that her father is Hunter Biden and that her paternal grandfather is the president of the United States. She speaks about both of them often, but she has not met them. Her maternal grandfather, Rob Roberts, described her as whip-smart and funny.“I may not be the POTUS,” Mr. Roberts said in a text message, using an acronym for the president, but he said he would do anything for his granddaughter. He said she “needs for nothing and never will.”The story surrounding the president’s grandchild in Arkansas, who is not named in court papers, is a tale of two families, one of them powerful, one of them not. But at its core, the story is about money, corrosive politics and what it means to have the Biden birthright.Her parents ended a yearslong court battle over child support on Thursday, agreeing that Mr. Biden, who has embarked on a second career as a painter whose pieces have been offered for as much as $500,000 each, would turn over a number of his paintings to his daughter in addition to providing a monthly support payment. The little girl will select the paintings from Mr. Biden, according to court documents.“We worked it out amongst ourselves,” Lunden Roberts, the girl’s mother, said in an interview with The New York Times. “It was settled” in a discussion with Mr. Biden, she said.Hunter Biden did not respond to a request for comment for this article.Hunter Biden remains close to his father and often appears at White House events.Haiyun Jiang/The New York TimesMs. Roberts said she dropped a request to have the girl’s last name changed from Roberts to Biden. (Mr. Biden had fought against giving their daughter the Biden surname.) Ms. Roberts would only say that the decision to drop the request was mutual. “We both want what is best for our daughter, and that is our only focus,” she said.Though a trial planned for mid-July has been averted, people on both sides fear that the political toxicity surrounding the case will remain. Already, it has been extensively covered in conservative media, from Breitbart to Fox News, and conservative commentators assailed the Biden family after news of the settlement.Both Hunter Biden, the privileged and troubled son of a president, and Ms. Roberts, the daughter of a rural gun maker, have allies whose actions have made the situation more politicized. There is no evidence the White House is involved in those actions.Clint Lancaster, Ms. Roberts’s attorney, has represented the Trump campaign. He also called Garrett Ziegler, an activist and former Trump White House aide who has cataloged and published messages from a cache of Hunter Biden’s files that appear to have come from a laptop he left at a repair shop, to serve as an expert witness in the child support case. In the other corner, allies of Democratic groups dedicated to helping the Biden family have disseminated information about Mr. Ziegler and the Roberts family, seeking to highlight their Trump ties.And then there is President Biden.His public image is centered around his devotion to his family — including to Hunter, his only surviving son. In strategy meetings in recent years, aides have been told that the Bidens have six, not seven, grandchildren, according to two people familiar with the discussions.The White House did not respond to questions about the case, in keeping with how officials have answered questions about the Biden family before.Several of the president’s allies fear that the case could damage his re-election prospects by bringing more attention to a son whom some Democrats see as a liability. Others say the far right has focused on Hunter Biden, a private citizen, but ignored any moral and ethical failings of the former president, Donald J. Trump.“He’s under more indictments than two Super Bowl teams’ worth of players,” the author and political strategist Stuart Stevens, who left the Republican Party in 2016, said of Mr. Trump. “But that doesn’t matter: You have Hunter Biden. It’s just anger in search of an argument.”‘People Have an Image of Me’Lunden Roberts, 32, comes from a clan as tight-knit as the Bidens. Her father is a red-state gun manufacturer whose hunting buddies have included Donald Trump Jr., and who taught her at a young age how to hunt turkeys and alligators. She works for the family business, which sits on a winding country road dotted with pastures on the outskirts of Batesville.The pride of her family, the 5-foot-8 Ms. Roberts graduated with honors from Southside High School in Batesville and played basketball for Arkansas State University, where a team biography said she enjoyed hunting and skeet shooting. After graduating, she moved to Washington to study forensic investigation at George Washington University. She never completed the program. Photos from that time show her attending baseball games at Nationals Park and attending Drake and Kanye West concerts.Lunden Roberts arriving for a hearing in the paternity case in Batesville, Ark., in May. Ms. Roberts and Mr. Biden settled the case on Thursday.Karen Pulfer Focht/ReutersAlong the way, she met the son of a future president who was sliding into addiction and visiting Washington strip clubs.In mid-2018, Ms. Roberts was working as a personal assistant to Mr. Biden, according to a person close to her and messages from a cache of Mr. Biden’s files. Their daughter was born later that year, but by then, Mr. Biden had stopped responding to Ms. Roberts’s messages, including one informing him of the child’s birth date. Shortly after their daughter was born in November 2018, he removed Ms. Roberts and the child from his health insurance, which led Ms. Roberts to contact Mr. Lancaster.She filed a lawsuit in May 2019, and DNA testing that year established that Mr. Biden was the father of the child. In a motion for custody filing in December 2019, Ms. Roberts said that he had never met their child and “could not identify the child out of a photo lineup.”Ms. Roberts said in an interview that she had grown used to the onslaught of scrutiny around the case: “I read things about myself that I have no clue about,” she said. But one thing she said she can’t stand is being called a bad mother. “People can call me whatever they want, but they can’t call me that,” she said.Her public Instagram account tells its own story: “I hope one day when you look back you find yourself proud of who you are, where you come from, and most importantly, who raised you,” she captioned a photo of the two of them at the beach earlier this year. In another photo, shared to her account in April 2022, her daughter wore an Air Force One baseball cap and stood in front of the Jefferson Memorial.“People have an image of me, but few get the picture,” Ms. Roberts wrote on another photo in July 2022.Ms. Roberts posted a photo of herself and her daughter in Washington last year. Seen through one prism, the photos are a powerful public testament of love from a mother to her daughter. Seen through another, they are exploitative, certainly from the perspective of Biden allies, who fear the images — and the child — are being weaponized against the Biden family.For her part, Ms. Roberts said she did not bring her daughter to Washington to punish the Bidens. She said she brought her to Washington because not many little girls get to say that their grandfather is the president.“She’s very proud of who her grandfather is and who her dad is,” Ms. Roberts said. “That is something that I would never allow her to think otherwise.”A Troubled SonHunter Biden, 53, is recovering from crack cocaine addiction and is the last surviving son of the president, who lost his eldest, Beau, to brain cancer in 2015. The younger Mr. Biden has five children, and has said that he fathered his fourth at a low point in his life.“I had no recollection of our encounter,” Mr. Biden wrote in his 2021 memoir. “That’s how little connection I had with anyone. I was a mess, but a mess I’ve taken responsibility for.”Before Thursday’s settlement, Mr. Biden had paid Ms. Roberts upward of $750,000, according to his attorneys, and had sought to reduce his $20,000-a-month child support payment on the grounds that he did not have the money. The new amount is lower than what had been originally ordered by the court, according to a person familiar with the case.“I’m very proud of my son,” President Biden told reporters recently.Al Drago for The New York TimesTrial or no trial, Mr. Biden will remain one of his father’s political vulnerabilities. Since his addiction spiraled out of control and his dealings with foreign governments caught the attention of conservatives, the younger Mr. Biden’s choices have become grist for memes, conservative cable news panels and Republican fund-raising. The most recent round kicked off after he struck a deal with the Justice Department to plead guilty to two misdemeanor tax charges and accept terms that would allow him to avoid prosecution on a separate gun charge.On top of that, Mr. Biden has been the subject of multiple congressional investigations, and the contents of the laptop he left at a repair shop have been pored over and disseminated by activists, who say his private communications show criminal wrongdoing.In the White House, matters involving Hunter are so sensitive that only the president’s most senior advisers talk to him about his son, according to people familiar with the arrangement.Through it all, the president has been staunchly supportive. Rather than distance himself, Mr. Biden has included Hunter on official trips, traveled with him aboard Marine One, and ensured that he is on the guest list at state dinners.“I’m very proud of my son,” the president told reporters recently.‘Life’s Greatest Blessing’President Biden has worked over the past half-century to make his last name synonymous with family values and loyalty. The strength of his political persona, which emphasizes decency, family and duty, was enough to defeat Mr. Trump the first time around, and he would need to keep it intact if Mr. Trump is the Republican nominee in 2024.On a proclamation issued on Father’s Day, Mr. Biden said that his father had “taught me that, above all, family is the beginning, middle and end — a lesson I have passed down to my children and grandchildren.” He added that “family is life’s greatest blessing and responsibility.”President Biden; Jill Biden, the first lady; and their children and grandchildren watching fireworks from the White House after Mr. Biden’s inauguration in 2021.Doug Mills/The New York TimesSince they entered the White House, President Biden and Jill Biden, the first lady, have centered their family lives around their grandchildren, and have given them the benefits that come with living in close contact with the White House.Naomi Biden, 29, is Hunter’s eldest child, from his first marriage, to Kathleen Buhle, which ended in 2017. Ms. Biden was married on the South Lawn of the White House last year in a Ralph Lauren dress that she called the product of her “American(a) dreams.” She and her sisters have taken trips around the world with the president and first lady. Hunter married Melissa Cohen in 2019. His youngest child, who is named for Beau and was born in 2020, is photographed frequently with his grandparents.In April, President Biden told a group of children that he had “six grandchildren. And I’m crazy about them. And I speak to them every single day. Not a joke.”Hunter Biden’s youngest son, Beau, is frequently seen traveling and attending events with his grandparents.Haiyun Jiang/The New York TimesBut the president has not yet met or publicly mentioned his other grandchild. His White House has not answered questions about whether he will publicly acknowledge her now that the child support case is settled.Still, Mr. Stevens, the political strategist, said that Mr. Biden’s support of his son, even against an onslaught of Republican criticism and ugly scandals, has only emphasized his unconditional love for his family.“The net positive of this has gone to Biden, by the way,” Mr. Stevens said of the president. “He stuck by him.”Political ConcernsFew involved think the particulars of this case, even though it has been settled, will stay at a simmer, especially given its ubiquity in right-wing media.“In yet another sweetheart deal, Hunter Biden got off easy in his child support case,” wrote the editorial board of The New York Post, which has followed the proceedings closely.Aside from the news coverage and commentary, allies of the Biden family are privately worried that the involvement of right-wing operatives in the matter has made any engagement harder for the family.Mr. Ziegler, who was named as an expert witness in the case, had a footnote role in Mr. Trump’s efforts to challenge the 2020 election results: In December 2020, Mr. Ziegler escorted Mr. Trump’s former national security adviser, Michael T. Flynn, and the attorney Sidney Powell into the Oval Office, where a group discussed with Mr. Trump a plan to seize control of voting machines in key states. Mr. Ziegler’s White House guest privileges were later revoked.Mr. Ziegler declined to confirm his involvement in the child support case.Ms. Roberts’s attorney, Mr. Lancaster, also has a background in conservative activism. He is vocal on social media about his support for Mr. Trump, often retweeting criticism from conservative outlets and Elon Musk, the owner of Twitter. He also worked as an attorney for the Trump campaign during an electoral vote recount in Wisconsin after the 2020 election.Supporters of former President Donald J. Trump at a rally in 2020. Allies of the Biden family are concerned that the paternity case will be used against President Biden in the 2024 campaign.Al Drago for The New York TimesOn the other side, people affiliated with left-leaning organizations, including Facts First USA, an advocacy group run by David Brock, are wary of what the team surrounding Ms. Roberts may do as the 2024 campaign gets underway.Members of the group, which operates independently of the White House and has taken a more adversarial approach to critics than the Biden administration does, have circulated a photo of Ms. Roberts’s father posing with Donald Trump Jr. Mr. Roberts said in a text message that he has gone hunting with Mr. Trump but that he did not recall when they had first met.The Republican pollster Frank Luntz said it was “a waste of time” for activists to focus on attacking the president’s family because voters do not care about Hunter Biden as much as they care about other issues, including Ukraine and inflation.“You have the responsibility to hold people accountable, but I want to be clear: It will not change a single vote,” he said of Hunter Biden’s legal and personal problems.If the Roberts family is taking political advice — outside of any that might come from the family attorney — they aren’t saying. In Batesville, the girl’s maternal grandmother, Kimberly Roberts, said in a brief telephone interview that she would not comment on the case.She did have one thing to say, though.“My granddaughter is happy, healthy, and very loved,” Ms. Roberts said, before hanging up.Kenneth P. Vogel More

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      Herschel Walker Urged Woman to Have a 2nd Abortion, She Says

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      ATLANTA — A woman who has said Herschel Walker, the Republican Senate nominee in Georgia, paid for her abortion in 2009 told The New York Times that he urged her to terminate a second pregnancy two years later. They ended their relationship after she refused.In a series of interviews, the woman said Mr. Walker had barely been involved in their now 10-year-old son’s life, offering little more than court-ordered child support and occasional gifts.The woman disclosed the new details about her relationship with Mr. Walker, who has anchored his campaign on an appeal to social conservatives as an unwavering opponent of abortion even in cases of rape and incest, after the former football star publicly denied that he knew her. He called her “some alleged woman” in a radio interview on Thursday.The Times is withholding the name of the woman, who insisted on anonymity to protect her son.In the interviews, she described the frustration of watching Republicans rally around Mr. Walker, dismiss her account and bathe him in prayer and praise, calling him a good man.She said she wanted Georgia voters to know what kind of man Mr. Walker was to her.“As a father, he’s done nothing. He does exactly what the courts say, and that’s it,” she said. “He has to be held responsible, just like the rest of us. And if you’re going to run for office, you need to own your life.”The interviews and documents provided to The Times together corroborate and expand upon an account about her abortion first published on Monday in The Daily Beast. The Times also independently confirmed details with custody records filed in family court in New York and interviewed a friend of the woman to whom she had described the abortion and her eventual breakup with Mr. Walker as those events occurred.Mr. Walker’s campaign declined to comment about the woman’s account.The woman reaffirmed the key details of her account: She and Mr. Walker conceived a child in 2009 and decided not to continue the pregnancy. Mr. Walker was not married at the time. She provided to The Times a $575 receipt she was given after paying for the procedure at an Atlanta women’s clinic, and a deposit slip showing a copy of a $700 check that she said Mr. Walker gave her as reimbursement. She also shared a “get well” card with a handwritten message — “Pray you are feeling better” — and signed simply, “H.”Mr. Walker has repeatedly denied her account, calling it a “flat-out” lie and the work of Democrats and the hostile news media. He has disputed that he signed the card. He told Fox News on Monday that he sends money “to a lot of people.”“I know this is untrue. I know it’s untrue,” Mr. Walker said on the “Hugh Hewitt Show” on Thursday. “I know nothing about any woman having an abortion.”A woman told The New York Times that she and Mr. Walker, who is now the Republican Senate nominee in Georgia, decided in 2009 not to continue a pregnancy they conceived. She provided to The Times a $575 receipt she was given after paying for the procedure and said he reimbursed her. Mr. Walker has repeatedly denied her account.Later on Thursday, he gathered reporters in a lumber yard 150 miles east of Atlanta for his first public event since the report first surfaced and read a statement that did not directly address it. Instead, he blamed his political opponents.Understand the Herschel Walker Abortion ReportCard 1 of 5The report. More

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      Ex-Wife of Eric Greitens, Missouri Senate Candidate, Accuses Him of Abuse 

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      Sheena Greitens said in an affidavit that her former husband had physically abused both her and their young son. Mr. Greitens, a former governor of Missouri, denied the accusation.The former wife of Eric Greitens, a leading Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate in Missouri, has accused him of physically abusing her and one of their sons in a sworn affidavit that could have serious implications in the race for the seat of Senator Roy Blunt, who is retiring.Mr. Greitens, whose campaign denied the allegations on Monday, abruptly resigned as governor in 2018 amid a swirling scandal that involved a sexual relationship with his former hairdresser and allegations that he had taken an explicit photograph of her without her permission. He was also accused by prosecutors of misusing his charity’s donor list for political purposes.But until the latest revelation, his attempt at a political comeback had appeared improbably successful, despite efforts by Missouri’s Republican establishment to block it. Mr. Greitens, 47, a former Navy SEAL, had aligned squarely with former President Donald J. Trump, cheered on anti-vaccine and anti-mask protesters, and surged to the lead in a crowded Republican primary race for a key open Senate seat.He now faces fresh calls from his opponents to drop out, lest he turn a reliably red seat competitive in November.Representative Vicky Hartzler of Missouri, who is running against Mr. Greitens in the Republican primary and has garnered support from many top state officials, issued a statement accusing Mr. Greitens of “a pattern of criminal behavior that makes Eric unfit to hold any public office.”“He should drop out of the U.S. Senate race immediately,” she said. Senator Josh Hawley, Republican of Missouri, who as the state’s attorney general in 2018 pressed Mr. Greitens to resign as governor, wrote on Twitter, “If you hit a woman or a child, you belong in handcuffs, not the United States Senate.”Part of a continuing child custody dispute, the sworn affidavit from Sheena Chestnut Greitens, 39, a professor of public policy at the University of Texas at Austin, accused Mr. Greitens of physical abuse and “unstable and coercive behavior.” The 41-page affidavit, filed on Monday in Boone County Circuit Court in Missouri, said that Mr. Greitens had become increasingly violent in 2018 as his sex scandal threatened to end a once-promising political rise that he hoped would take him to the White House.“Prior to our divorce, during an argument in late April 2018, Eric knocked me down and confiscated my cellphone, wallet and keys so that I was unable to call for help or extricate myself and our children from our home,” wrote Dr. Greitens, who has two young sons with Mr. Greitens and whose divorce from him became final in May 2020.She added that his “behavior included physical violence toward our children, such as cuffing our then-3-year-old son across the face at the dinner table in front of me and yanking him around by his hair.”In a statement on Monday, Mr. Greitens’s campaign denied the allegations and said that they were politically motivated. The statement said that Dr. Greitens was “engaged in a last-ditch attempt to vindictively destroy her ex-husband.” Mr. Greitens later issued a personal statement saying he would continue “fighting for the truth and against completely fabricated, baseless allegations.” A lawyer for Dr. Greitens did not respond to requests for comment on Monday about the affidavit, which was reported earlier by The Associated Press. Representative Billy Long of Missouri, another Republican candidate for the Senate seat, said on Monday that he was “shocked and appalled” by the affidavit, adding that Mr. Greitens was “clearly unfit to represent” their state in the Senate.Mr. Greitens’s lead in the polls has flummoxed other Republicans like Mr. Long, considering that the 2018 investigation of Mr. Greitens was led by Republicans and looming impeachment proceedings would have been carried out by the Republican-controlled legislature.In 2018, Mr. Greitens’s former hairdresser described an alarming sexual encounter in which, she said, he had taken a photo of her and threatened to share it if she told anyone about their affair. Around the same time, questions began to emerge about whether he had used the donor list of a veterans charity he founded to help his political campaign in 2016.In her affidavit, Dr. Greitens said her husband had bought a gun but refused to tell her where he had hidden it. She said he had threatened to kill himself “unless I provided specific public political support to him,” despite accusations of infidelity that she said he had admitted to, even as she said he threatened her with legal action if she revealed that confession.Mr. Greitens is one of several Republican candidates aligned with Mr. Trump who have drawn concerns from top party leaders in Washington, though the former president has yet to endorse anyone in the Missouri race. In November, Sean Parnell, a Trump-endorsed candidate for the Pennsylvania Senate seat being vacated by Patrick J. Toomey, a Republican, dropped out of that contest after a judge ruled in favor of his estranged wife in a custody fight that also involved allegations of abuse. In Ohio, a former Trump White House aide, Max Miller, challenged Representative Anthony Gonzalez after Mr. Gonzalez voted to impeach Mr. Trump, helping to push the incumbent into retirement. Mr. Miller is now suing an ex-girlfriend and former White House press secretary, Stephanie Grisham, after she accused him of physical abuse.In December, another Trump-backed Senate candidate, the former professional football player Herschel Walker, who is running in Georgia, told Axios he was “accountable” for past violent behavior toward his former wife, Cindy Grossman. However, his campaign said he still denied accusations from two other women who said he had displayed threatening behavior toward them.Hannah Norton contributed reporting. More