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Kevin Morris, Hunter Biden’s $6.5 Million Patron, Draws Fire From All Sides
The Hollywood lawyer’s support of the president’s son is under scrutiny from House Republicans while his aggressive tactics are rankling the White House.
Kenneth P. Vogel, Luke Broadwater and
Kenneth P. Vogel and Luke Broadwater reported from Washington, and Michael S. Schmidt from New York.
He found a house for Hunter Biden’s new family, paid divorce costs to Mr. Biden’s ex-wife and helped resolve a paternity lawsuit from a third woman. He footed the bill for Mr. Biden’s security, back taxes and car payments, facilitated the publication of a memoir and the launch of an art career, and provided emotional support as Mr. Biden dealt with scrutiny from prosecutors and political adversaries.
In recent years, no one has been more influential in helping Hunter Biden rebuild his life after a devastating battle with addiction than the Hollywood lawyer Kevin Morris.
But Mr. Morris’s role has now become a flashpoint of its own.
His influence in shaping an aggressive legal and public relations defense for the president’s son against criminal indictments and Republican attacks has rankled President Biden’s advisers inside and outside the White House.
While they see the relationship as helping the president’s son avoid relapse, they also grumble that Mr. Morris’s generous financial backing, confrontational counsel and conspiracy theorizing has only drawn attention to Hunter and the impeachment push against his father by allies of former President Donald J. Trump.
“I’m not very popular at the White House,” Mr. Morris said in congressional testimony last month.
Although Mr. Morris says he has never had more than a few brief interactions with President Biden, his involvement has stoked investigations by House Republicans. They have been asking whether Mr. Morris is using the relationship with Hunter to further his own interests or provide backdoor financial help to the Biden 2024 re-election campaign.
The story of Mr. Morris’s support for the president’s son, as laid out in new detail in interviews, documents and congressional testimony, is a tangle of good intentions, deep pockets, family tragedy and legal and ethical issues. It comes amid scrutiny of payments that Hunter Biden received from previous wealthy patrons who could have benefited from access to his father or just the perception of it.
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