Hunter Biden's lawyer, Kevin Morris (the dubious-looking fellow on the left in the above image), hasn't exactly been on a winning streak lately. Morris recently threatened legal action against legal scholar Jonathan Turley. Turley doubled down on Friday morning — and made Morris look like a fool in the process.
First, a bit of background:
Following the initial “Laptop from Hell” report by the New York Post in 2020, the House launched an impeachment inquiry into the Biden family. Investigators revealed President Joe Biden received money from James and Hunter Biden. They also showed that nine additional Biden family members received payments from the family’s foreign business ventures, including two of Joe Biden’s grandchildren.
In addition, the inquiry also compelled Morris to verify that he purchased Hunter’s ten percent stake in a Chinese state-backed investment fund, BHR Partners, confirming Breitbart News’s exclusive in April. BHR Partners, an entity controlled by the Bank of China, has about $3 billion currently invested around the world, according to its website.
The inquiry also forced Morris to admit he loaned Hunter millions of dollars to maintain his lifestyle and pay his taxes and legal fees, actions that caused America First Legal to file a bar complaint with the State Bar of California.
In a Friday column titled "The Curious Ethical Case of Kevin Morris," Turley not only refused to back down; he again slammed Morris — sometimes referred to as Hunter's "sugar brother" — for his beyond questionable relationship with Joe Biden's son.
On Wednesday, I received a letter from Bryan M. Sullivan, a partner at Early Sullivan Wright Gizer & McRae LLP, who is the lawyer of Kevin Morris (who is the lawyer for Hunter Biden).
The letter warns that I could face a defamation action if I do not retract (or if I repeat) my criticism of Morris’s representational relationship with Hunter.
Putting the personal invectives aside, Sullivan did offer a couple of details on the possible defense of Morris in a pending ethics complaint brought by a conservative legal group.
Roughly a year ago, I wrote a column discussing how Morris and others reportedly met to plan out a scorched earth strategy to attack and threaten critics. The Washington Post reported that the discussion included targeting or threatening critics with defamation lawsuits.
In his letter, Sullivan attacks my reference to ethics rules as unworthy of a professor as well as “blatantly misleading and just bad lawyering.” That tirade about my lack of knowledge and principles is followed by a demand for an immediate retraction and adds “if you repeat your baseless charges, you understand that accusing someone of violating the law is defamation per se.”
I will not issue a retraction despite the threats of Morris and Sullivan. I did, however, publish another column repeating my objections to Morris’s blurry representational claims.
“The effort in such threats is to silence or chill critics in their criticism of a wealthy, powerful public figure like Mr. Morris,” Turley wrote in the Friday column. He then highlighted Morris’s recent congressional testimony and his ownership of Hunter’s stake in BHR Partners:
[T]he transcript refers to Morris investing or assuming interest in entities associated with Hunter’s foreign partners or businesses. It is not clear what financial interest Morris assumed with regard to any real property owned by Hunter. I specifically asked Sullivan [Morris’ lawyer] about such transactions.
These business interests appear to have arisen after Morris delved into his client’s finances as his counsel. His client was in obvious financial distress at the time. It is important to determine if Morris assumed interest or purchased assets due to his knowledge of Hunter’s past dealings.
Again, there is a telling exchange with Morris of his ownership of 10% of Bohai Harvest RST LLC (BHR), through his acquisition of interest in Skaneateles LLC. Those are business interests associated with Hunter Biden. Note the apparent confusion of Morris in his knowledge and claims of privilege:
Q Did you have a written agreement with Hunter Biden regarding the sale of Skaneateles?
A I don’t know. I don’t believe so. Or — I don’t know. Probably, yeah. Probably, it was the — I would imagine I had to — okay, yeah. The answer is yes.
Mr. Liner. You had legal counsel as well.
Mr. Morris. Correct. A lot of them.
Q Does that contract allow for Hunter Biden to purchase back BHR at a certain time point?
A That I don’t — I can’t tell you, Counsel.
Mr. Liner. Meaning you don’t know?
Mr. Morris. Meaning I don’t know.
This is an exchange after Morris was told weeks in advance that he would be asked about his payments, loans, and agreements with Hunter Biden. Yet, Morris is still not clear on what agreements he had with his client or key details on those transactions. He is not even sure if he is holding an asset (that is the subject of [a] congressional inquiry into his client’s dealings) that he might just give back to his client at some point.
I'm not a legal scholar, but I do believe that when people begin hemming and hawing like Morris did in the above block quote, they are trying to remember what they said, last time — which is usually a clear indication that lying is involved.
As I reported on Tuesday, Morris continues to insist that the $5 million he gave to Hunter, after meeting him at a 2019 campaign fundraiser for then-presidential candidate Joe Biden, was actually "a loan," and that no cash was given directly to Hunter. The money, he said, was to cover Hunter's expenses and pay his outstanding tax liabilities, as well as to purchase some of his mediocre-at-best art.
Turley, on Friday, blasted Morris over the money. First, his original paragraph from the aforementioned 2023 column.
Lawyers are not supposed to pay the bills of their clients. Specifically, California Bar Rule 1.8.5(a) states that “[a] lawyer shall not directly or indirectly pay or agree to pay, guarantee, or represent that the lawyer or lawyer’s law firm will pay the personal or business expenses of a prospective or existing client.” They are required to maintain clear representational boundaries. This is also now the subject of a new bar complaint filed by a conservative legal group this week.
Then, Turley addressed the above:
Sullivan suggests that Morris is not subject to this general prohibition because he could claim exceptions to the rule against such payment of personal costs or bills of a client.
There certainly are such exceptions or allowances but some of us reject their applicability to Morris or to these payments or loans. Indeed, we believe that Morris’s ill-defined representational relationship is precisely what these rules strive to avoid.
[T]hose concerns were magnified by Morris’s recent deposition where he seemed to struggle to separate matters falling under his roles as friend, donor, investor, and lawyer.
Turley continued to go into greater detail, but I'll stop here. You can click on the link at the top to read Turley's complete Friday column.
The Bottom Line
Jonathan Turley destroyed Kevin Morris's attorney's "justification" for threatening the renowned legal scholar with a defamation lawsuit. As he said, such threats are often used to intimidate legitimate critics — particularly the closer such critics get to the truth.
In this case, Morris and his attorney threatened the wrong guy — a guy who always seems to do his homework.
SEE MORE:
Photo of Hunter’s Lawyer at Home Is Raising Big Questions About Hunter's 'Recovery'
Hunter Biden Shows up to Plea Deal Hearing Accompanied by His Bong-Ripping 'Sugar Brother'
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