Posted on 01/27/2024 2:44:55 AM PST by CFW
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.
(Excerpt) Read more at jonathanturley.org ...
The “Legal System” in the USA is totally corrupt and unethical.
If the law doesn’t matter to these privileged elites, ethics sure as hell doesn’t enter the picture.
Would one expect anything different from Rat Party hacks?
You is a prognosticator!
Without question.
There are 1.3 million lawyers in America, and in everyone greed is their touchstone.
Using the law to deal with lawyers is futile.
Hospitalization might cause a lawyer to cease the attacks on good people
“The “Legal System” in the USA is totally corrupt and unethical.”
Always has been, but not to the degree it is today. If one thinks about it, the system was designed by lawyers, run by lawyers, and primarily benefits lawyers. The reason many lawyers behave the way they do is because they feel invulnerable. They’re running the system so they have little to fear.
Morris’ testimony to Congress must have been a revelation to the legal profession-——to wit: whenever you get uncomfortable being compelled to tell the truth, it’s perfectly OK to declare a “retroactive attorney-client privilege” on the spot, so nothing “you” say under oath can be held against your client.
The glib, ever-inventive Morris also set a yummy new
standard WRT those annoying rules applied to lawyers’ ethics:
<><>they should be read broadly – in the context of what could be used to sanction Morris,
<><>but they MUST be read narrowly in terms of sanctioning anyone daring to criticize Morris.
Morris perfectly describes the double standard embraced by the Biden administration.
“Illusion of Influence”: The Media Moves the Goalpost Again on Biden Corruption Coverage
Jonathan Turley ^ | August 11, 2023 | Jonathan Turley
Posted on 8/12/2023, 10:30:42 AM by george76
snip
The true “illusion” was the resourceful Bidens getting
this eternal scandal to disappear in front of millions.
The key to this Houdinesque Biden trick was to get the media to invest in the deception
(kinda like audience members called to the stage to witness the trick).
The reporters have to back the “illusion of influence” or admit that they were part of the deception. Even with millions from Hunter’s influence-peddling funneled to the Biden family, and acknowledgments that the family was “selling the [Biden] brand,” it cannot be enough.
Even the Bidens’ clever subterfuge.....use of a ridiculously complex array of two dozen entities to transfer and launder money without any known purpose, it cannot be enough.
It is far easier to demand to see something no self-respecting Beltway bandit would commit: that after creating this labyrinth of shell companies and accounts, the Bidens went ahead and just did the equivalent to a Venmo payment directly to Joe and Jill Biden.
The disappearing act may not be believable.....
but who among us believes Hunter Biden is an energy expert?
Love it.
Yes but........ the evidence required to convict is unobtainable within real time if at all.
We can only hope there is at least one event where expediency and laziness avoided the labyrinth procedure and provides evidence in suitable quality and quantity to obtain a conviction. Even better is the hope that the one laziness event became a precedent because it worked and then resulted in others.
Like Al Capone, Hunter is being charged with crimes resulting from events ancillary to the main criminal activity. The reason is that there is evidence, hard evidence.
FR thread: Morris gave Hunter Biden over $6.5MILLION
Over $one million MORE than he previously disclosed
washingtonpost.com
snip
Morris, who appeared before a Congressional committee, testified that he met Hunter Biden at a Biden for President Democrat fundraiser in November 2019. Morris said Hunter was “someone in need,” (even though Hunter was the son of the most powerful man on the globe, had degrees from Harvard and Yale, who made millions as a Ukranian “energy expert” and had negotiated lucrative billion dollar deals w/ astute Communist Chinese bankers and businessmen).
The two forged a quick connection.
<><>Lawyer Morris agreed to represent Biden.
<><>he bought some of Hunter’s art for $40,000 (or more)
<><>he invested some $167,000 in Biden’s businesses.
<><>soon Morris agreed to help Hunter pay his taxes,
<><>to pay Hunter’s rent,
<><>to settle needy Hunter’s debts for his Porsche.
Morris declined to answer numerous questions posed by Congress about exactly how much he has loaned Biden and for what purposes. But the lawyer Morris said there were “around” five promissory notes, with interest, and the terms state that Biden needs to repay them starting in 2025. The million dollar loans can also be forgiven.
snip
“And yet Turley will continue to vote Democrat.”
Can you substantiate that assertion.
snip
A transcript from a House panel’s closed-door interview with Hunter’s art dealer Georges Bergès, provides the most complete picture, to date, of Hunter Biden’s artwork, including when his paintings have been sold and for how much.
In total, there have been 10 buyers of the art, who have paid a sum of $1.5 million. Under their agreement, the gallerist received 40 percent of the sales while Biden took 60 percent. Three of the buyers have been identified, while the other seven remain anonymous.
The largest share of the work — 11 paintings, for a total of $875,000 — went to Kevin Morris. Morris has become one of Biden’s closest friends while also acting as Hunter's lender, investor, confidant, his attorney and as Hunter's very generous financial benefactor.
Democratic donor Elizabeth Naftali bought two pieces of Biden’s, one for $52,000 and another for $42,000. President Biden appointed her in 2022 to the U.S. Commission for the Preservation of America’s Heritage Abroad.
William Jacques, an art collector whom Bergès described as a “really good friend” and part-owner of his gallery, bought four pieces for a total of $122,500.
There are seven other buyers, but they have remained anonymous, according to Bergès. He suggested that those purchasers were longtime collectors and customers of his.
Some Republicans and ethics experts have questioned whether buying Hunter Biden’s paintings could be a dubious way for individuals to curry favor with the White House, given that works of art are notoriously hard to value and the president’s son is not an established artist.
Biden’s circle strongly denies this, saying the paintings have merit and that none of the purchasers want anything from the White House. They also note that most of them have remained anonymous, making it impossible for them to seek favors in exchange for their purchases.
Bergès entered into his art dealer arrangement with Hunter Biden in early December 2020, shortly after Joe Biden was elected president but before he was sworn in. Jacques purchased a painting for $40,000 that month, and one of the unidentified buyers also bought one.
In February 2021, Jacques purchased two more paintings for $25,000 each. Naftali purchased a painting titled “Mother and Daughter” that month for $42,000. Jacques and Naftali did not respond to requests for comment Tuesday. When her name was revealed as a buyer last year and she was questioned by House Republicans, Naftali’s attorney defended the purchases. Jason Abel, wrote in a letter to Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.). “To be clear, Ms. Naftali purchased the artwork solely because she liked the art, and the prices were reasonable.” He also said that she did not seek out a position on the Commission for the Preservation of America’s Heritage Abroad, and that it came at the instigation not of the White House but of then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.). “Any attempt to link Ms. Naftali’s art purchases to her appointment to the Commission is also baseless,” Abel wrote.
The House Judiciary and Oversight committees interviewed Bergès on Jan. 9 in a closed-door session led by a committee lawyer. The panels, which are conducting an impeachment inquiry into President Biden that has yielded little public evidence of wrongdoing, is scheduled to interview Hunter Biden on Feb. 28 after a lengthy back-and-forth over the terms.
Bergès was asked numerous times during his interview about White House involvement in his arrangement with the Georges Bergès Gallery as first described by The Washington Post in July 2021. The Post reported that White House attorneys, concerned about potential ethical issues, urged that any buyers of Hunter’s paintings be kept confidential, a practice that was adopted.
Bergès testified that (despite reports to the contrary) he never spoke with anyone from the White House, and claimed that he was surprised to read reports about the Biden WH's "ethics" arrangement.
snip
Morris’ “catch me if you can” testimony to Congress reeked with
the self-serving odor of an individual who knows he’s well-connected.
So whatever the Congress does, Morris knows the Bidens will put the kibosh to it.
Joe Biden will never allow the Congress to hurt his baby boy, Hunter.
Agree 100%.
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