Kevin Morris, Hunter Biden’s “Sugar Bro”, testified before the House Oversight and Judiciary Committees on Wednesday. A reading of Morris’s testimony, considered in tandem with testimony provided last week by Hunter Biden’s gallery owner, suggests that Hunter was setting up another front for family influence peddling when the scheme unfolded. collapsed due to public scrutiny.
On Thursday, House Oversight and Accountability Committee Chairman James Comer released a statement following the committee’s transcribed interview with Hollywood lawyer Kevin Morris. In his press release, Comer revealed that Hollywood producer Lanette Phillips introduced Morris to Hunter Biden during a campaign event at his Los Angeles home for Joe Biden in the winter of 2019. A week later, Phillips called Morris to discuss what Morris had apparently presented as an “entertainment” issue. Morris then visited Hunter at his home in Los Angeles, according to the press release.
According to Comer, Morris said he began providing money to Hunter Biden in January 2020. Then, on February 7, 2020, Morris sent an email to Hunter’s tax advisors and accountants, writing: ” We take considerable risks personally and politically to get the returns. » Less than two weeks later, Hunter Biden filed his long-awaited 2017 and 2018 tax returns, despite not paying his hefty tax bill at the time. Around October 18, 2021, Morris paid some $2 million in back taxes for the president’s son.
In addition to paying Hunter’s taxes, Morris also paid many of his living expenses and purchased 13 of Hunter Biden’s paintings – two before Hunter joined a gallerist and 11 after, with Morris paying $875,000 for the set purchased from the gallery owner.
The gallery owner
That gallery owner, George Berges, testified last Tuesday before the House Oversight and Judiciary committees regarding his knowledge that Hunter Biden was profiting from his new career as a painter. Berges, the owner of the Soho-based George Berges Gallery, told the committee that he was Hunter Biden’s “gallery owner” beginning in December 2020. As Hunter’s gallerist, Berges acted as his agent exclusive, selling Hunter’s paintings. In this role, Berges had direct knowledge of the money flowing into Hunter’s bank account through his new business venture.
Berges’ testimony pales in comparison to some prior witnesses who revealed details about Hunter Biden’s dealings with Burisma and Joe Biden’s involvement in his son’s business dealings. Yet, studied in its entirety, the gallery owner’s testimony paints a picture of an attempt to launch a new business to cover the continuation of the Biden family’s pay system. Morris’ testimony this week adds a more precise definition.
First, we have testimony from the gallery owner that Lanette Phillips also introduced Hunter to him in 2019, telling Berges that Hunter was an artist. Then there’s the fact that in December 2020, Hunter and Berges signed a contract naming the gallerist as his exclusive representative, with Berges receiving a 40% commission on sales. That contract, Berges testified, included a provision that required the gallery owner to disclose to Hunter the identities of the buyers of his paintings.
As Berges explained, this was not a typical contractual condition; he had never included a similar clause in any of his other contracts. “Normally, the gallery owner does not let the artist know who the collectors are,” confirms Berges, adding that of the fifteen artists he currently works with, none asks to know who bought their work. Berges elaborated by stating, “That’s my collector base” and you don’t want “your artists to bypass you if they know your collectors.”
While the contract required Berges to give Hunter the names of the buyers, Berges explained during the interview that he never did so and that, because Hunter did not insist on knowing their identities, his instinct was not to share information. Nevertheless, Hunter learned the names of several of the buyers, for example Elizabeth Naftali.
Again, Lanette, the same Hollywood producer and Biden promoter who introduced Hunter to Morris and Berges, introduced Berges to Naftali. Naftali purchased two paintings by Hunter, the first in February 2021, shortly after his father’s inauguration. She then purchased another painting, spending a total of $94,000 on the pair.
During the committees’ questioning of Berges, they noted that on July 1, 2022, President Biden appointed Naftali to the U.S. Commission on the Preservation of American Heritage Abroad. A lawyer for the committee added that when Joe Biden was vice president, he also arranged for Eric Schwerin, then Hunter Biden’s business partner, to be appointed to the same board.
Besides Naftali, Hunter Biden also knew the identity of Morris, who on January 19, 2023, purchased, on behalf of his LLC, Kuliaky Art, 11 paintings for $875,000. Berges explained that Morris saw the paintings at Hunter’s California exhibition in October 2021, then negotiated the January 2023 sale with him over the phone.
Berges further explained that Morris did not pay the kitchen for the paintings, but instead paid Berges his 40 percent commission and then paid Hunter (or reduced his loan balance) separately.
Comer notes in his reading of Morris’ interview that it was only after he purchased these paintings from Hunter that he was granted a visit to the White House. But there is a bigger cloud of smoke surrounding these purchases than Joe Biden welcoming his son’s benefactor to the White House.
Something doesn’t add up
Why would Morris buy paintings from Berges? As Berges testified, the reason gallerists don’t share the names of their buyers with artists is so they don’t get priced out of the market. Morris, however, probably didn’t want to ruin Hunter’s relationship with Berges, Berges explained. But that doesn’t explain why Morris wouldn’t have bought art from Hunter until he found a gallery owner.
Here we come across an interesting detail: Morris said he purchased two works of art from Hunter Biden before finding a gallery owner. So why wait until Hunter enters into a contract with Berges before purchasing more art? And why wait until January 2023, when he saw the art at an exhibition in October 2021? (It’s also worth noting that Berges got Hunter’s impression that he had never sold any art before retaining him as a gallerist.)
Morris’ $875,000 was a significant portion of Hunter Biden’s total sales of $1.5 million. In fact, Morris’ purchase represented such an “exception,” as Berges put it, that the Soho gallerist has not renewed its contract with Hunter and is considering dropping him as a client.
“I look at the totality,” Berges said. “If I look at this whole artist objectively, I would say, okay, it’s great that we asked someone to make a major acquisition, but let’s look at the general response and what the value is.”
“It’s not that impressive,” he concluded.
Morris, in negotiating with Berges over the price of the images, however, avoids the question of whether he overpaid for the art in order to make a then-taxable gift to Hunter Biden. Morris’ purchase also makes his friend’s art seem worth the high price Berges was asking, even though “the general response,” without Morris, was “not that impressive.”
One must wonder, however, whether the lack of interest in Hunter’s expensive paintings stems from attention to what appears to be the latest paid scam scaring away the artist’s target audience: those seeking favors or access to the now president.
A foiled plan?
With no media coverage, it was a perfect plan: Hunter Biden reemerges as an artist and sends those he or his family want to hang out with to Soho to buy his paintings from a gallerist who independently set the prices of the paintings. Berges’ testimony indicates that he is truly independent, for while he explained that he had become friends with Hunter, much to his regret, he was forced to admit to having made several donations to President Donald’s re-election campaign Trump. Berges even suggested that he voted for Trump and not his client’s father in 2020.
Hunter, in fact, even ensured that he could learn the identity of the buyer to confirm the transaction, although it soon became clear that this was not necessary; the buyer could simply tell him or show him the work of art. But then the press picked up on the story and, unlike the laptop scandal, this time they didn’t bury it. In the summer of 2021, the White House was forced to do damage control, saying it was working on a deal with Hunter’s gallery owner to ensure the anonymity of buyers of his paintings.
Berges said he was surprised to hear that from the White House because he had never told anyone there about his deal with Hunter Biden. Nonetheless, at Hunter’s request, Berges removed the disclosure requirement and replaced it with a provision prohibiting the gallerist from disclosing the identities of buyers. They then entered into a new contract on September 1, 2021.
Aside from Morris’ large purchase last January, there appears to be little demand for the paintings, leaving one to wonder whether, without his target audience, Hunter’s art is as worthless as his skills as a Member of the Board of Directors.
Margot Cleveland is an investigative journalist and legal analyst and serves as the Federalist’s senior legal correspondent. Margot’s work has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, The American Spectator, the New Criterion (forthcoming), National Review Online, Townhall.com, the Daily Signal, USA Today, and Detroit Free Press. She is also a regular guest on nationally syndicated radio programs and on Fox News, Fox Business and Newsmax. Cleveland is an attorney and graduate of Notre Dame Law School, where she earned the Hoynes Prive, the law school’s highest honor. She then served for nearly 25 years as a staff law clerk to a federal appellate judge on the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. Cleveland is a former full-time faculty member at the university and now teaches from time to time. Cleveland also serves as legal counsel to the New Civil Liberties Alliance. Cleveland is on Twitter at @ProfMJCleveland where you can learn more about her greatest accomplishments: her dear husband and her dear son. The opinions expressed herein are those of Cleveland in his private capacity.
