The Hollywood lawyer who pays Hunter Biden’s taxes and covers his living expenses told Congress that President Biden “always made jokes” about his back-length and shoulder-length hair, but deflected many pointed questions in the impeachment inquiry into the Biden family’s alleged corruption.
Kevin Morris, 60, claimed last week in a deposition that he could not recall details about his eldest son’s purchase of a 10% stake in a Chinese government-backed investment fund — which has caused White House headaches during Joe Biden’s first year in office — or about loans to Hunter that could exceed $5 million.
“The president waved and I think he said hi,” the mostly gray entertainment lawyer recalled of a 2021 visit to the White House where Hunter, 53, gave him a tour.
“He always makes jokes about my hair. I think he made a crack in my hair. That’s all.”
Morris, who supported her eldest son including commissioning a documentary crew to track her down for a potential reality TV-style production, testified in a closed deposition that she immediately became Hunter’s lawyer when she met him at a late 2019 fundraiser for Joe Biden, meaning she couldn’t talk. a lot because of attorney-client privilege.
Kevin Morris, 60, claimed last week in a deposition he could not recall details of his eldest son’s purchase of a 10% stake in a Chinese government-backed investment fund. AP
Morris said it was not yet clear when or how the documentary footage would be used.
“We’re doing a lot of Hunter filming as part of the setup, or as an asset to have in case it’s needed and a legitimate thing,” Morris said. “We haven’t decided if we’re going to sell it as a commercial documentary.”
In his testimony, Morris gave vague confirmation of the fact that he visited the White House on three occasions, including last year’s Fourth of July picnic and for the wedding of Hunter’s daughter Naomi in 2022, and that he provided Hunter Biden with approximately $5 million in loans and assumed control of a Hunter Biden-owned entity that held a 10% stake in Chinese government-backed BHR Partners.
But Morris claims he can’t remember many details or he can’t reveal them because of the attorney-client privilege.
“I have been his lawyer since the first day we met. I’ve become his friend, too,” said Morris, who described how he and Hunter initially met briefly when he was leaving a November 2019 fundraiser.
Host Lanette Phillips called later to see if she was willing to meet Hunter, which happened in December 2019.
Morris said he and Hunter spoke for about five hours at Hunter’s home in Los Angeles and that it was “one of the most important meetings of my life” — and added, “it is my belief that Hunter has been terribly abused.”
Morris became Hunter Biden’s lawyer after meeting him at a late 2019 fundraiser for Joe Biden. Getty Images
“I’m not sure [of] the exact amount” he lent Hunter Biden, Morris said.
“I don’t remember” the amount most recently calculated, he added — though under questioning, he said it was “basically” correct that he loaned Hunter about $4.9 million between 2020 and 2022, as alleged by IRS case agent Joseph Ziegler, who worked for five years on the tax fraud case against the first son before being removed from the investigation shortly after allegedly covering up to protect Joe and Hunter Biden.
Morris said his aid to his first son amounted to “less than 10 percent” of his total assets.
He said he also made payments to Hunter’s ex-wife, Kathleen Buhle, and to Lunden Roberts, a former adult entertainer with whom Hunter shares a daughter.
Although the loan comes due in 2025, Morris admits there’s a chance he won’t be repaid — perhaps requiring Hunter to wash his car as compensation.
“As it is [with] any creditor … if they default under the note, yes, the holder has the option to enforce it,” Morris said. “You can do a lot of things. They can come and wash your car for the rest of their lives.”
Details of Morris’ acquisition of Chinese government-backed investment fund BHR Partners’ interests remain murky. He said he believes he bought a 10% stake — by taking over Hunter’s Skaneateles LLC — for $157,000, but he may have also paid off a $250,000 loan CEO Jonathan Li made to Hunter in 2019.
After initially testifying that his reason for buying the stake was “privileged,” he said, “I did the transaction because, you know, I judged it as a businessman, and I thought it was something that could be a very successful investment.”
“He always makes jokes about my hair. I think he made a crack in my hair. That’s it,” Morris said of President Biden. ZUMAPRESS.com
A questioner asked Morris, “Can you tell us after this interview when you bought the BHR?”
“Yes,” he agreed.
“And how much does it cost?”
Morris replied again, “Yes.”
Some of Hunter’s so-called “sugar brothers” answers were unclear or contradictory.
“Do you have a written agreement with Hunter Biden regarding the sale of Skaneateles?” an impeachment inquiry questioner asked.
“I don’t know,” Morris began. “I don’t believe so. Or – I don’t know. Maybe, yes. Maybe, it was — I would imagine I had to — okay, yeah. The answer is yes.”
When he was asked, “Does the contract allow Hunter Biden to buy back BHR at a certain time?,” Morris replied, “I don’t — I can’t tell you … I mean I don’t know.”
BHR Partners was created within 12 days of Vice President Joe Biden’s 2013 arrival in Beijing with Hunter, the Wall Street Journal reported. While there, Joe Biden had coffee with incoming chief executive Li, Hunter Biden’s former business partner Devon Archer told Congress in July.
Joe Biden later wrote college recommendation letters for Li’s children and greeted them on speakerphone, Archer said.
Hunter Biden, Kevin Morris and Abbe Lowell attend a House Oversight Committee meeting on January 10, 2024. Getty Images
Documents from Hunter’s abandoned laptop linking his father to business contacts in countries including China and Ukraine would not be published when Hunter first met Morris, but the former second son’s foreign dealings had caught the attention of the press and Morris acted to clear them up. tax bill.
Morris wrote to a team of accountants on February 7, 2020 — about two months after meeting Hunter at a campaign fundraiser for his father — that they should expedite their work on Hunter’s tax papers to avoid “significant personal and political risk.”
But Morris insisted in his testimony that he was not thinking about the 2020 election, which Republicans say could be considered a campaign finance violation, and instead the impeachment proceedings of President Donald Trump for pressuring Ukraine to investigate the Biden family’s dealings in Ukraine, where Hunter earned a salary of up to $1 million a year to serve on the board of directors of the Burisma gas company while his father led US policy towards the country.
Trump’s Senate hearing ended, however, two days before the email was sent.
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Source: thtrangdai.edu.vn/en/
