Chattanooga Times Free Press

HUNTER BIDEN’S $2 MILLION ‘SUGAR BROTHER’

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One of the mysteries of the Hunter Biden matter is how the president’s son, with no obvious sources of income, manages to maintain a grand lifestyle. For the last year or so, he has been living in a $20,000-a-month rental house in Malibu, Calif. (The taxpayers are footing the bill for the Secret Service to pay even more, $30,000 a month, to rent the house next door while protecting Hunter.) The younger Biden also likes nice cars; a 2020 photo showed him arriving for lunch at the Waldorf Astoria in a Porsche Panamera GTS, which costs six figures.

Where is all that money coming from? Does Biden, who by his own descriptio­n has in the past been a drug addict who threw away money right and left, have great investment­s that keep him in such a life, even as he hires expensive lawyers to represent him in a federal tax and influence probe? Are his benefactor­s in Ukraine or China or elsewhere still helping him? Has he sold so many paintings — in confidenti­al transactio­ns, of course — that he is rolling in dough? What is the story?

Now we have some new clues. New reports from the New York Post and CBS News said that a “high-powered Hollywood attorney,” a man named Kevin Morris, has been paying Biden’s back taxes and monthly bills. Morris, according to the Post, “earned a fortune representi­ng the co-creators of ‘South Park’ and won a Tony Award as the co-producer of ‘The Book of Mormon.’”

That’s a lot of money. The Post reports the back taxes that Morris has paid for Biden amount to $2 million, “more than twice what was previously reported.” Morris, who is known to Biden’s friends as Hunter’s “sugar brother,” reportedly also pays Biden’s “rent and living expenses [and] has also been advising the president’s son on how to structure his art sales.”

If any Biden allies choose to defend him, look for them to attack the New York Post. Remember that they denounced the Post when it published the original story of Biden’s laptop. It turned out the defenders were wrong and the Post was right. Now, another news organizati­on, CBS, is also reporting on the Morris connection.

CBS reported that Morris has “paid Hunter Biden’s pastdue tax debts.” And it said that Morris “has been operating behind the scenes and has turned his attention in recent weeks to conducting a forensic analysis and investigat­ion into what happened to Hunter Biden’s laptop — including how the device became public, sources familiar with his efforts say.”

That’s a fascinatin­g tidbit, because it indicates Biden might be preparing some sort of public relations campaign challengin­g the legitimacy of the laptop — just as his defenders did before the 2020 election. It was successful back then, when some major news organizati­ons downplayed the news. But in the years since, both the New York Times and Washington Post have authentica­ted informatio­n that came from the laptop.

Anybody reading the new stories about Morris paying Biden’s back taxes and expenses will have to wonder: Is that legal? It’s unclear. CBS reported that Morris is “working on a documentar­y chroniclin­g Hunter Biden’s life … .” Perhaps the financial arrangemen­t between Morris and Biden has something to do with that. Perhaps Biden has sold the rights to his life story to Morris, and the deal includes Morris keeping Biden afloat — yet another way for him to cash in on his family’s name.

At some point, the U.S. attorney in Delaware will decide to charge or not to charge Hunter Biden. When that happens, we will learn more, but not all, of the story. We might learn more still if Republican­s win either the House or the Senate, or both, in this year’s midterm elections. If they do, you can bet there will be GOP Hunter Biden investigat­ions galore. But whoever is doing them, the point remains: The public needs to know more about Joe Biden’s and his son’s financial dealings, however that can be accomplish­ed.

 ?? ?? Byron York
Byron York

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