Has Hunter Moved Out Of The White House?

Exactly where Hunter has been living for the past year or more hasn't been clear in any case, but common speculation had been that he'd moved into the White House sometime in 2022, at least in part to avoid legal service in his child support case with Lunden Roberts. This was settled last month, which would take away one possible reason for his extended White House stay.

On the other hand, Hunter and Joe have a strange relationship that at least outwardly looks like codependency. It appears that Hunter continues to be a key adviser to Joe, and in addition, it seems likely that he enables Joe's inflence-peddling side gig at the same time that Joe enables Hunter's drug and alcohol abuse. All things being equal, it looks like Joe would prefer to keep Hunter close at hand in the White House, while the unexplained baggie near the Situation Room (if that's where it was) suggests Hunter had worked out a modus vivendi with White House security that would accommodate his habits.

I think, though, that after the baggie episode, it was made known to Joe that there was only so much the Secret Service could do to maintain appearances. I posted here on the best explanation I've heard for the baggie: in the view of former cocaine addict and Wolf of Wall Street Jordan Belfort, someone like Hunter will leave small stashes all over the place in order to have a constant supply close at hand. I strongly suspect the Secret Service had already been finding these as a matter of routine, and it was only a uniformed officer who was out of the loop on the holiday weekend who called it in as a hazmat incident.

Thus it must have been transmitted to Joe that it was only a matter of time before something like this happened again, and while the Secret Service could claim ignorance this time, all future bets would be off. So at this point, Joe had two options: let Hunter stay on at the White House and risk more baggie discoveries that link Joe with enabling Hunter's drug use, or send Hunter back to LA again under Kevin Morris's aegis, where he seems to have been between 2019 and 2022.

I suspect this had already proven unsatisfactory by last year. Hunter had a team of Secret Service minders in the rental adjoining his own in the Malibu compound that was apparently paid for by Kevin Morris, but what we're beginning to see from last week's vignette on the balcony with the bong is that Kevin is anything but a stabilizing influence, and I've got to think that by the middle of last year, the Secret Service had made it known to Joe that Hunter was getting out of hand.

So Joe had two bad options: keep Hunter close by in the White House and risk more baggies being found, or send Hunter back to California with Kevin and risk even bigger scandals with wrecked cars and Russian hookers. I suspect the fallback plan with Kevin involves an even bigger Secret Service detail and closer escort with multiple black SUVs, but a tacit agreement to look the other way over drug deals -- in fact, I'll bet Kevin even handles those. Hookers? I imagine those can be factored in as well. Just don't let him drive, that's the big thing.

(As I've noted here frequently, Hunter's wife Melissa seems mostly out of the picture these days.)

Wednesday's court hearing in Delaware does add complications. Following Hunter's not guilty plea, the conditions of his realease require him not to use any alcohol or drugs, including marijuana, which although legal in California, is still prohibited under his conditions. In addition, he has to submit to drug tests. We don't know how strictly these will be enforced, but all of this is a risk. Even a repeat of last week's situation with Hunter visiting Kevin while Kevin went onto the balcony with a bong could now have repercussions that could put Hunter in jail.

It's hard to imagine someone like Hunter resisting the temptation to take a hit if Kevin lights up a bong while he's visiting, but even if he refrains, there's some possibility he could fail a drug test just by being in the room. But why would a "friend" like Kevin expose him to even that temptation?

It's slowly being acknowledged that the judge placing Hunter's plea deal on hold in the Delaware hearing is a major blow to Biden's reelection strategy. The whole intent was to resolve Hunter's legal issues once and for all and get them out of the way before the 2024 campaign. Now it's less likely that this will happen, while the likelihood that Hunter will do something new to get back in the news is increasing -- and the Secret Service will be right there enabling it with black SUVs.

The paparazzi have those black SUVs dialed in -- we learned that last week.

Who Blew It?

Legal commentators on the disastrous courtroom events for Hunter Biden in Delaware yesterday have avoided asking this question, but they've unavoidably skirted it by noting that plea deals aren't usually handled this way.

Normally there's just a pro forma exchange in which the judge makes sure the defendant understands the terms of the plea, and it's 15 minutes in and out. Commentators like Jonathan Turley have noted that it's basic lawyering to have the terms of the plea fully negotiated and agreed to before it reaches the court, yet somehoe this didn't take place. So who blew it? According to Politico, Hunter

was accompanied by a group of lawyers, including prominent white collar defender Abbe Lowell. Kevin Morris, a Hollywood lawyer who has reportedly given Hunter significant financial help, sat in the audience with members of his legal team.

Morris has repeatedly identified himself as Hunter's "lead attorney", and according to the UK Daily Mail,

Hunter Biden flew to his criminal court hearing in a private jet belonging to his ‘sugar brother’, according to a source and flight records.

A Dassault Falcon 50 belonging to Kevin Morris, Hunter’s lawyer and financial benefactor, flew from a Los Angeles airport to Philadelphia today, landing around 7.15pm local time, flight data shows.

A source told DailyMail.com that Morris and the First Son were on the plane.

As I noted here, Hunter was spotted visiting Morris at one of his LA area homes last Friday, when Morris was spotted huffing from a bong on the home's balcony. One can only infer that they were having a premature celebration.

On the other hand, Chris Clark was the attorney who spoke for Hunter in front of the judge. He's the gent with graying hair and a bald spot walking into the courthouse behind Hunter in the photo above. The peculiar thing about Clark is that he left the white-shoe Latham & Watkins firm only this past April in order to take on Hunter as the major client in a new firm:

Last week, leading litigator Christopher Clark left Latham & Watkins, one of Biglaw’s biggest and best names, to launch his own boutique. Together with Patrick Smith, a former colleague of his from the U.S. Attorney’s Office, and Rodney Villazor, another former federal prosecutor, Clark is a founding partner of Clark Smith Villazor.

For this new podcast episode, Clark and I discussed his time at the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York, which he joined right after clerking; his time in Biglaw, including Dewey & LeBoeuf during its downfall; why he admires his most controversial client, Hunter Biden; helpful advice for representing billionaires; and, finally, a key skill for success as a lawyer—which, sadly, many lawyers overlook.

One would assume a key skill for success as a lawyer would be to be sure you have your client's plea deal nailed down in detail before you go before the judge. But beyond that, it sounds as though he and two former federal prosecutor colleagues formed a new firm primarily to defend Hunter, which maybe they thought would establish their reputation in the white collar defense world. So far, that isn't working out the way they expected. According to Yahoo,

Criminal prosection experts say that the younger Biden went from "a sweetheart deal" to a "real poison pill" that could "expose him across the board."

"The judge had an obligation to make sure that the defendant and the government have a very clear idea of what is implicated guaranteed," Jonathan Turley, criminal law professor at George Washington University, told Fox News, adding that "they didn't have that."

Turley said the plea deal dissolving in such a manor [sic] is "extremely rare" akin to "a wedding where both the groom and bride object."

Along with Bud Light and the Titan sub, this is starting to look like another episode in the crisis of competence among our Ivy-educated elites. Chris Clark has a BA from Berkeley Phi Beta Kappa and a JD from Coiumbia cum laude. Kevin Morris has a BA from Cornell and a JD from NYU. Abbe Lowell has both a BA and a JD from Columbia. Hunter Biden has a BA from Georgetown and a JD from Yale Law.

These legal minds together managed to concoct an epic debacle. My theory, though, is that Kevin Morris, who appears to have been paying all the legal bills, worked out the overall strategy, quite possibly with the help of Hunter, between hits on a bong. That's the only explanation I can think of that fits.

I'm Still Wondering About Kevin Morris's Angle

One takeaway I had from last week's case of the balcony bong was that Kevin Morris seems to own yet another house, this one a pied-a-terre on a swanky street that might be in Pacific Palisades. This is apparently in addition to his sprawling loft in Tribeca, as well as the $11 million Malibu compound that he bought from Olivia Newton-John.

Hunter Biden's Secret Service detail drives him over for casual afternoons on weed, but it pretty clearly wouldn't matter what they smoke together, because the men in the black SUV waiting outside will keep things quiet no matter what. And that's the main puzzle I have: Morris is supposed to be a rich lawyer, but it's hard to avoid thinking he's hanging with Hunter because he needs something, not least protection. Protection from what?

It has to be something important. Just yesterday, we learned that in addition to setting up the whole deal whereby Hunter would sell his paintings to unknown buyers, Morris himself bought unspecified paintings for unspecified amounts:

Hunter Biden also reportedly sold art to his top lawyer, Kevin Morris, who also paid Hunter Biden’s unpaid IRS bill of about $2 million. The entertainment lawyer is at the center of Hunter Biden’s new-found career of painting modern art, an occupation connected to the art market known for corruption.

Morris helped Hunter forge a framework to sell art to anonymous buyers through a dealer with ties to the Chinese art market. Morris was also involved in Hunter’s 2021 controversial memoir.

Nevertheless,

During a July 9, 2021, press briefing, then-White House press secretary Jen Psaki addressed Hunter Biden's sale of artwork and concerns that his works may present conflicts of interest with the administration.

"After careful consideration, a system has been established that allows for Hunter Biden to work in his profession within reasonable safeguards. . . . all interactions regarding the selling of art and the setting of prices will be handled by a professional gallerist adhering to the highest industry standards, and any offer out of the normal, of course, would be rejected out of hand."

"And the gallerist will not share information about buyers or prospective buyers, including their identities, with Hunter Biden or the administration, which provides quite a level of protection and transparency," she continued.

. . . Despite the alleged safeguards, the younger Biden did ultimately learn the identity of at least two buyers, including one who donated to his father's campaign.

Further,

Elizabeth Hirsh Naftali, a Los Angeles real estate investor and Democratic donor named to a U.S. commission, is among the buyers of novice paintings by Hunter Biden. The price: $1.3 million.

Naftali, picked by President Joe Biden to serve on a prestigious preservation commission, bought an artwork from the son of the nation’s commander in chief, the New York Post reported, citing Business Insider.

The Hunter Biden sale to a standing U.S. commissioner may have broken an “absolute wall” between President Biden’s official duties and his family’s business interests. It came to light in sales records from Hunter Biden’s art dealer, the Georges Bergès Gallery of Manhattan.

But the problem I see is that Ms Hirsh Naftali engaged in a single quid-pro-quo transaction with the Bidens, but Kevin Morris seems to have been running a good part of the whole family boodle -- he lent Hunter the money to pay his tax bill, he brokered his memoir, he set up the art sale scam, and oh by the way, he's Hunter's lead attorney in his federal tax and firearm case. So what else is there?

I'll bet there's a lot more to learn. Morris has got to want something important.

The History Channel's The FoodThat Built America Glorifies Bud Light!

The History Channel's The Food That Built America is a slick and glitzy business-school style "whig history" that covers why we have the wonderful frozen waffles, fried chicken, fast-food burgers, or packaged luncheon meats we have in this best of all possible consumer worlds. It can sometimes be vaguely informative, and even when it isn't, it gives some insight into the thought processes of the people who fancy they control the planet.

This past Sunday's episode is important for what it leaves out, since it chronicles how that wonderful product Bud Light became the top US beer, which is perfect anyhow. I'll grant that the episode must have been produced and in the can before last March, when a trans influencer singlehandedly destroyed the brand in a matter of weeks, but even if it hadn't been finished by then, that part of the story would have been so alien to the show's mission that they'd probably have had to scrap the whole episode rather than add an update.

The first part of the show covers the rise of yet another perfect, wonderful product, light beer. Philip Morris, a tobacco company, was faced with increasing regulatory limits on cigarette sales in the 1960s and decided to expand its business by buying Miller, an also-ran brewer. Philip Morris had already pioneered "light" cigarettes and was able to sell them successfully by identifying them with the macho Marlboro man, rather than trying to market any health benefits they might have.

In the process of branching into beer, they acquired another brewery that in fact produced a low-calorie beer marketed mostly toward women. That was a niche market that was going nowhere, but it also didn't taste good. Still, the Philip Morris wheels began to turn, and they decided the way to sell low-calorie beer was to call it "light", not low calorie, and imply that its main benefit was you could get more buzzed on more beer with the same amount of calories. Health had little to do with it.

Thus they made commercials with sports figures and other macho guys roaring "Tastes Great!" and "Less Filling!" According to Wikipedia,

Miller Lite was introduced nationally in 1975 and became the first successful mainstream light beer in the United States.

Miller's youth-oriented, heavy-advertising approach worked where the two previous light beers had failed, and Miller's early production totals of 12.8 million barrels quickly increased to 24.2 million barrels by 1977 as Miller rose to 2nd place in the American brewing marketplace,

Wikipedia continues,

Other brewers responded, in particular Anheuser-Busch with its heavily advertised Bud Light in 1982, which eventually overtook Lite in sales by 1994. Anheuser-Busch played on the branding style of "Lite", boasting that next to Bud Light "everything else is just a light". In 1992, light beers became the biggest domestic beer in America[.]

However, Bud Light didn't overtake Miller Lite until it decided to market to males as welL, According to The Atlantic,

A Super Bowl ad changed everything. In 1987, Anheuser-Busch made a play for younger male drinkers with a 30-second spot during the big game featuring a bull terrier named Spuds MacKenzie—“Bud Light’s original party animal!” Spuds became a pop-culture sensation, skateboarding in sunglasses and drawing the thirsty gaze of scantily clad women. “He’s Spuds MacKenzie,” the narrator of a later ad exclaimed: “One party-loving, happening dude!” . . . Spuds came to embody the fun-loving-frat-boy image that set Bud Light apart from the more staid Budweiser brand.

. . . Seven years later, in 2001, Bud Light passed Budweiser to become America’s best-selling beer, period: a staple at grocery stores and bars, a ubiquitous option at the ballpark, an entry-level lager to crush at college parties and tailgates.

This is the place where The Food That Built America ends its story. What a country! The Atlantic takes it farther:

“I had a really clear job to do when I took over Bud Light, and it was, ‘This brand is in decline, it’s been in a decline for a really long time, and if we do not attract young drinkers to come and drink this brand, there will be no future for Bud Light,’” Alissa Heinerscheid, vice president of marketing for Bud Light, told the Make Yourself at Home podcast in March. A month later, Heinerscheid was placed on leave as the company tried to control the fallout of the anti-Mulvaney boycott. Her effort to shed the company’s frat-boy image may have been too tall an order for a brand that built its empire by encouraging young men to imagine themselves as a literal horndog.

But this raises a key question. A declining top brand is still a top brand. What if Anheuser had just left Ms Heinerscheid's position vacant and decided Bud Light wasn't broken enough to try to fix? Wouldn't they have had decades of continuing profit? At this point, they'd be happy just to coast down to number two after x years without the black eye they've had from the Mulvaney fiasco. The Atlantic concludes with a shrug:

But tastes change. Schlitz was once America’s best-selling beer, and the original Budweiser’s run ended in 2001. Bud Light rose to prominence as a good-time brand that brings the party: Our beer is fun! Drink a lot of it! Today’s drinkers tend to have a more sophisticated self-conception. They also have far more options—and opinions. Beer exists in a fractious world in which anything can become ammo in the culture war, be it Disney movies or clothing at Target. No beer brand will ever be so dominant again. It’s difficult to know quite how to feel.

I'm not sure if it's that easy. By the 1960s, brewers knew you don't sell beer by marketing to women. Light beer rose to prominence by claiming to be a macho product. Suddenly a woman Harvard graduate whose appearence is calorie-conscious verging on anorexia decides the way to go is to market to guys who pretend to be skinny women. Even The Atlantic tacitly acknowledges this decision became ammo in a culture war, and that war has been a debacle.

It's probably best the History Channel could pretend it hadn't heard anything about Dylan Mulvaney. But the real history here is yet to be written.

Dylan's 15 Minutes Of Fame Are Up

Via The New York Post:

Mulvaney — who recently escaped to Peru to “feel safe” from the backlash and boycotts hounding her and the fizzling beer brand — offered up her [sic] services in an Instagram post Wednesday.

“Booking speaking opportunities for the upcoming 23/24 school year and would love to come visit,” she told her [sic] 2 million followers.

My impression of the college lecture circuit has always been that it features faded celebrities and other special pleaders past their sell-by dates. From my own time as an undergraduate in the 1960s, I remember Judy Garland (then, though still alive, largely a gay cult icon); Madalyn Murray O'Hair (prominent in the anti-school prayer movement, who quickly faded after the Supreme Court outlawed it); Immanuel Velikovsky (author of the 1950 Worlds in Collision, which argued that Biblical miracles were a misreading of astronomical catastrophes); and Michael Meeropol (son of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, who argued his parents had been falsely accused of espionage, something he and his brother eventually retracted in part).

According to the them website,

It’s unclear what exactly Mulvaney will be up to next. “So, right now, I’m thinking about longevity — how do I hopefully have a career that goes on for the next 40 years?” she told Them. “And how do I be happy outside of social media? Because that’s what I think I’m retraining my brain to figure out: All the other aspects of my life have to be just as important as that one.”

The overwhelming puzzle of Dylan Mulvaney is how he managed to inspire what has proven to be one of the most successful product boycotts of all time. One commentator called it not just a brand boycott, but a brand revulsion, and there's an important distinction there. A boycott is an essentially political phenomenon that may have limited short-term success. The closest example might be the boycott of Dow Chemical over napalm in the 1960s:

Dow was not known as a defense contractor — in fact, until its Pentagon contract, the business was best known for making industrial chemicals and household plastics like Saran Wrap.

But over the next few years, as Americans began seeing gruesome images of South Vietnamese children with horrific napalm burns, the antiwar movement set its sights on the company.

Activists boycotted Dow Chemical’s products, staged protests at its recruiting events on college campuses and barraged its executives with accusations of unethical war profiteering.

. . . All told, the $5 million napalm contract most likely cost Dow Chemical billions of dollars. And it was the kind of unforced error that could have been avoided if company executives had listened to early signs of opposition, done some risk analysis and changed course.

But even the emotional impact of photos showing children with napalm burns fades in comparison with images of Dylan Mulvaney that produce more like a disgust instinct that's implied in the characterization of a "brand revulsion", or the suggestion that blue-collar males now avoid drinking the brand because women will think they're gay. According to Wikipedia,

It is believed that the emotion of disgust has evolved as a response to offensive foods that may cause harm to the organism. A common example of this is found in human beings who show disgust reactions to mouldy milk or contaminated meat. Disgust appears to be triggered by objects or people who possess attributes that signify disease.

It would seem there's a great deal to be said about the Dylan Mulvaney phenomenon and how it appears to have produced something like mass disgust. One thing that's clear is that after the Bud Light influencer deal, Mulvaney will never be asked to endorse another major brand.

What if he were to reflect on his situation and produce an account where he could speak with genuine insight into his experience? That might be worth hearing. Otherwise, he's still likely to cast about for something todo over the next 40 years.

A Former Addict Solves My Puzzle Over The White House Cocaine

Last Thursday, I posted on the details we know about the baggie of coke that was found in a cubby outside the White House Situation Room, and I concluded that nothing really fit.

Former Secret Service agents are unanimous that nobody who isn't the president, vice president, or a member of their immediate families gets into the business areas of the White House without a search, which includes metal detectors and emptying of pockets, as well as drug sniffing dogs. In other words, it's highly unlikely that either an outsider or a staff member could bring cocaine in.

On the other hand, if the suspect is a protectee, which is to say Hunter himself, the mathematics of addiction say that someone like Hunter needs a lot more than a random baggie of cocaine to satisfy his habit. He needs near-industrial quantities of coke, and it just isn't worth his trouble to smuggle in a baggie at a time; the supply is too small and unreliable.

The Secret Service people say it's the protectees who are never searched, so logically, we would expect Hunter to bring his own drugs in anyhow. Why would he need a drop at all? That just doesn't make sense.

Jesse Watters interviewed Jordan Belfort, the so-called "Wolf of Wall Street" and a former cocaine addict, on his Fox News program this past Monday evening, and as an ex-addict, he was able to clarify the potential issues surrounding Hunter's situation, while making it clear that he was speculating, and Hunter has not been tried or convicted. The Fox segment is shown via a YouTube at the top of this post, while the text quotes are from the UK Daily Mail's account of the program.

'Obviously I don't know for sure, but here's my theory,' he said. 'The obvious person to point to is Hunter Biden.

'Why? Because of the action - what people aren't focusing on is why would someone take it out of their pocket and leave it somewhere?

'The answer is because, when you're in that mindset of an addict, you want to have little 'drop points' so you can kind of sneak in, take a quick hit, leave it there for safekeeping, and come back. So it was being stored somewhere.

'In other words, you could easily keep it in your pocket and get in and out without getting detected, so the person that put it there had to be there on a consistent basis to keep using it undetected.'

So the Dan Bongino theory that I quoted last week and found implausible was that someone was bringing the cocaine in a baggie at a time and leaving it in a drop for Hunter to pick up later. Mr Belfort's theory is that Hunter has already brought a much larger quantity in and is simply secreting small amounts of it around the White House for convenience, and this cubby is one of them. This resolves my doubt about the baggie as a reliable way to smuggle the drug in from outside, and it also addresses the problem that Hunter needs a much bigger supply than baggie-level over the course of a day.

Mr Belfort also addressed the issue of whether Hunter has turned his life around, kicked his habits, and is now clean and sober.

'People don't typically stop using the drug unless they've suffered massive consequences,' he told Watters.

And this guy hasn't suffered consequences for anything - whether it's not declaring taxes, whether it's going on the board of Burisma - like why was he there? - whether it's becoming a famous artist overnight and selling scribble-scrabble for like hundreds of thousands of pounds - no consequences there.

'So why would he have stopped using drugs, I wonder, when there's no consequences?'

But this brings me back to the question of what the Secret Service knows, and the degree to which they're looking the other way over Hunter's drug use. Consider that the cubby outside the Sit Room would be just one potential spot where an addict like Hunter or Mr Belfort might secrete small amounts of a drug as a stash of convenience. In that case, when the question comes up over which location the July 2 cocaine was found -- the library, the lobby cubby, or the Sit Room cubby -- the answer might well be all of them. That could in fact have been the source of the confusion after that story broke.

This also goes to a question that came to mind after I posted on Hunter's visit with Keven Morris yesterday. I assume the Secret Service escort waited in the black SUV in which they'd driven Hunter to his "meeting" to take him back to where he was staying afterward. But in that case, even if he hadn't been smoking weed from a bong himself, he'd have been reeking of it from just being in the same room with Morris. If they had no other sign of what Hunter was up to before this, they'd have a good idea then. But this is presumably a regular detail, they know their protectee, and their protectee is regularly vioating federal law; not just cocaine, but marijuana is still illegal federally. What are their instructions?

This actually brings me to my last question: for the past several months, although nobody knows for sure, it's been more or less assumed that Hunter has been living in the White House, where he can be kept on a shorter leash. With the Sit Room episode, people like Mr Belfort are credibly inferring that under those circumstances, Hunter has been stashing cocaine all over the residence and offices to support his habit. It may well be that Joe has been getting advice that this has become unsustainable, the risk of another such discovery that might be more provably tied to Hunter is too great, and it's time for him to leave.

The trouble is that as soon as he's left -- which might be what's led to him being found smoking weed with Kevin Morris in LA -- he's going to revert to even more risky behavior like what he was doing from 2015 to 2019. For Joe, this is basically just two bad options, either drugs in the White House, or something even worse outside of it. But my bet is that a year or so ago, Hunter's minders at the Malibu compound had been warning Joe that Hunter was basically getting out of control there, which is why he was brought into the White House.

Something more is likely to break, sooner rather than later. At minimum, Kevin Morris is not the kind of guy you want Hunter hanging around with. But that brings up another question: what's in it for Kevin Morris? Running around with Hunter, at least right now, is a get-out-of-jail-free card for anyone who does it. What does Kevin Morris need something like that for?

As I Suspected

Via the UK Daily Mail,

Hunter Biden visited his 'sugar brother' Hollywood lawyer Kevin Morris – who was photographed appearing to smoke from a bong.

. . . While Hunter was at the house, Morris was snapped on a balcony in plain view of the public street appearing to huff from a white bong, in photos exclusively obtained by DailyMail.com.

. . . It is not clear what substance was in Morris's bong, and recreational marijuana use is legal in California. He did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

This vignette raises several important questions for me, but it begins to answer one I posed a couple of weeks ago about Hunter and Kevin:

Do they do coke together? I don't think this bodes well for Hunter's future. Kevin Morris is not a serious guy.

Bongs actually came after my time doing this sort of thing in college (which I did on and off for about 18 months but outgrew pretty quickly), when all we had was old-fashioned joints, so I went to Wikipedia for an explanation:

A bong (also known as a water pipe) is a filtration device generally used for smoking cannabis, tobacco, or other herbal substances.

Mr Morris is demonstrating its use pretty clearly in the photo. There is a large-diameter glass tube filled with water or other liquid, from which we can see him inhaling with vigor. In front of the glass tube, partly obscured by the forefinger of his right hand, is a stem loaded with cannabis. He appears to be holding a lighter in his left hand that he's using to ignite the cannabis in the stem, which in turn produces smoke that's drawn through the water in the tube and inhaled to give a euphoric effect. (But despite the Daily Mail's characterization that he "appeared relaxed", the wild-haired dude looks kinda like a hungry freak to me.)

Possession of small amounts of cannabis or marijuana for personal use is legal in California and some other states. According to writers like Alex Berenson, this has been a major public policy error, and I tend to agree. But just from watching police shows like On Patrol: Live, it appears that when people who are stopped and searched for drugs have marijuana, even in states where it's legal, they also carry other drugs like cocaine, methamphetamine, heroin, and fentanyl, which currently are illegal everywhere. This contributes to the impression that marijuana is a "gateway drug" that simply makes it easier to obtain and use more dangerous and illegal drugs.

This in turn leads to the perfectly reasonable question whether Mr Morris and Hunter used other drugs besides marijuana during their visit, but even if they didn't, this largely discredits the argument that Hunter has cleaned up his act and is living a life of sober respectability. If he were, it would be a major betrayal for Mr Morris to do anything that might encourage Hunter to relapse, like use drugs in his presence and in an environment where Hunter might also feel encouraged to use them. This in turn suggests that Hunter and Mr Morris mutually and cynically understand that the idea Hunter is clean and sober is for public consumption only.

But also, according to the Daily Mail link,

Hunter arrived in the afternoon in a black SUV, escorted by Secret Service bodyguards and dressed in a blue shirt, jeans and aviator sunglasses favored by both him and his father.

Presumably Hunter is routinely tailed by paparazzi, who alerted to the black SUV and followed it to Mr Morris's place, where they got their photos and sold them to the Daily Mail. But we may surmise that the Secret Service waited around for Hunter to finish his "meeting" and drove him back to the Malibu compound or wherever else he was staying, so they must have observed just as much as the paparazzi did of Mr Morris and the bong. This in turn strongly suggests to me that the Secret Service is fully aware of Hunter's drug use and other lifestyle issues and effectively enables them -- which they've had a history of doing since Joe's time as vice president.

But finally, it's hard to avoid the impression that Mr Morris is not acting in his client's interest. According to the Daily Mail link above,

Morris is currently suing right wing nonprofit Marco Polo and its founder, former Donald Trump White House staffer Garrett Ziegler, who has been investigating the Biden family.

The attorney accused Ziegler and his nonprofit of harassment, invasion of privacy and 'criminal impersonation' in court documents filed in Los Angeles.

But Morris himself is acting in a way that damages Hunter's reputation, by portraying him as someone who is present when drugs are used -- and in fact, in the deal that Hunter agreed to for his firearm charge, for which Mr Morris was lead attorney,

Hunter Biden also has agreed to enter into a so-called pretrial diversion agreement in connection with a federal felony charge of possession of a gun by a person who is a user or addict of illegal drugs, according to the filing by prosecutors in U.S. District Court in Delaware.

Typically, such agreements call for the related criminal charge to be dismissed if a defendant complies with the conditions of the deal for a set period of time.

Those conditions would normally include abstaining from any drug or alcohol use -- but Mr Morris is by his own actions suggesting he won't encourage Hunter to take this seriously.

Well, prolonged cannabis use affects overall judgment. I disagree with the media accounts that call Kevin Morris a "legal heavyweight". He's just an entitled a stoner with more money than brains.