House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer “cherry-picked” the testimony of Kevin Morris, a friend of Hunter Biden who sat for a deposition as part of the Republican impeachment inquiry into the president, Morris’s lawyer said.
Morris is a high-powered entertainment lawyer in Los Angeles who met Hunter at a 2019 presidential fundraiser for his father Joe Biden. Morris has loaned Hunter nearly $5 million in the years since. He testified about his relationship with the embattled First Son in a closed-door committee hearing Thursday.
“Not two hours after we left Mr. Morris’ transcribed interview, you issued a press statement with cherry‐picked, out of context and totally misleading descriptions of what Mr. Morris said,” Morris’s lawyer Bryan Sullivan said in a letter to Comer, which was obtained by The New Republic. “I demand you now release the entire transcript of Mr. Morris’ interview.”
Comer, who has led the charge against the president, released a list of paraphrased highlights from Morris’s testimony. Comer claimed that Morris informally loaned Hunter the money and does not expect to be repaid until after the 2024 election—or possibly ever. Comer also said that Morris has enjoyed unfettered access to the president and the White House in exchange for his ongoing financial support.
None of this could be further from the truth, Sullivan said in his late Thursday letter. Morris has only been to the White House or met the president a few times, and all of them were as Hunter’s guest. And the loans are just that: loans, not gifts, that must be repaid.
“Mr. Morris repeatedly testified he actually loaned the money to Mr. Hunter Biden, that these loans were reviewed by lawyers for each of them, that they have proper loan terms such as interest and a term, and that he expected Mr. Hunter Biden to repay these loans,” Sullivan wrote.
“Just release the full transcript. Why would you be reluctant or afraid to do that, other than it will disprove your spin? Let the public see the truth,” Sullivan concluded.
Oversight Committee Democrats have previously accused Comer of misrepresenting witness testimony in his quest to prove the Biden family is guilty of criminal wrongdoing. Comer has for months accused the president of corruption and influence peddling, but he has yet to produce any actual evidence.
Jamie Raskin, the ranking Oversight member, demanded in July that Comer release the complete transcript of a committee interview with a former FBI supervisory special agent. Raskin accused Comer of a “troubling pattern of concealing key evidence in order to advance a false and distorted narrative.”
But it’s clear why Comer is hesitant to release full transcripts. In August, he released the transcript of testimony from Devon Archer, Hunter’s former business partner. Archer undercut every claim Comer has made about the Bidens. Comer has since refused to allow Archer’s testimony to be introduced as evidence.