The Curious Ethical Case Of Kevin Morris [Hunter Biden]

Jonathan Turley.org ^ | 1/26/24 | Jonathan Turley

[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.

[Elsie]

Speaking of painting...




So this Irish guy knocks on this lady's door and says, you know, "Have you got any, uh... Any, uh... work for me?" 

And she says, "Um, well, you now, as a matter of fact, you could paint the porch." 

Two hours later, he comes back and says, "I'm finished, ma'am, but just for your information, it's not a Porsche, it's a BMW."  

[Liz]

Cute.