A wealthy Hollywood attorney, Kevin Morris, has told House impeachment investigators that he loaned Hunter Biden more than $5 million to pay off tax debts because the first son was an addict in recovery trying to “make amends” for his past ways and was attempting to get his life back together. Mr. Morris, who has said he’s also a recovering addict, said he and Mr. Biden hit it off immediately. 

“When I first met Hunter, he was emerging from the lowest point in his life,” Mr. Morris told investigators in his opening statement. The two men met at a Los Angeles fundraiser for the first son’s father in November 2019. The loan payments to Mr. Biden were sent just weeks later. 

“He’s had a lot of low points,” Mr. Morris continued. “At this time he had no income, and his wife Melissa was five months pregnant.” Shortly after the fundraiser, they began to spend time together socially, and Mr. Biden signed Mr. Morris as his attorney on retainer. 

Just weeks after meeting, Mr. Morris began loaning the first son money while he was advising him on certain legal issues. Mr. Morris said that he felt bad for Mr. Biden and believed he deserved more support than he was getting from friends and family. 

“In general, I was concerned that Hunter did not have the level of support he needed,” Mr. Morris continued. “I stepped in to assist.”

“I saw a guy, you know, that was from home, could have been my friend,” Mr. Morris, who is from the Philadelphia area that’s the Biden family stomping grounds, said of Mr. Biden. “He was getting — in my opinion, getting the s— beat out of him by the world. I found that he had … [a] worrisome lack of support. And he was … and [I] still believe today he’s a very good person and a great guy.”

Mr. Morris told investigators that he, like Mr. Biden, had for years struggled with drug and alcohol abuse. The first son has said he was sober for years until his older brother’s death in 2015, leading him to relapse. Mr. Morris says he has not had a drink of alcohol in nearly 30 years after beating his addiction.

Mr. Morris said he felt empathy for Mr. Biden, who was trying to “make amends,” which is a cornerstone of the 12-step addiction recovery program.

“What I tell people is that, you know, I basically found him like a guy getting the crap beat out of him … by a gang of people,” Mr. Morris said of the first son. “And, you know, where we come from, you don’t let that happen. You get in and you start swinging.”

The $5 million loan — which Mr. Biden has yet to repay — was not an insignificant sum for Mr. Morris. He confirmed to investigators in his interview that he has loaned about 5 percent of his net worth to Mr. Biden, meaning his total net worth sits near $100 million. 

Mr. Biden is due to start repaying the loan in 2025 with an interest rate of about 5 percent, Mr. Morris said. He also told lawmakers that his lawyer drew up the loan agreement between the two friends and, should Mr. Biden fail to repay, there would be financial penalties, though he did not specify. He joked to investigators that Mr. Biden could possibly repay the loan by washing his car.

 In 2021, Mr. Biden moved to Southern California with his second wife, Melissa Cohen, and their young son, Beau. Mr. Morris bankrolled the family by paying their $17,000 a month rent for a house at Malibu. “Just call my friend Kevin Morris,” Mr. Biden wrote to his landlord when he was asked about the rent, according to text messages reviewed by CBS News. 

Mr. Morris also told House investigators that he helped pay for Mr. Biden’s Porsche and also provided money to Mr. Biden so that he could pay alimony to the mother of his child in Arkansas, Lunden Roberts, a former stripper. 

Mr. Morris’s commitment to sobriety has been questioned in a recent ethics complaint filed against him by the America First Legal Group, which was founded by President Trump’s senior adviser, Stephen Miller. The complaint noted that Mr. Morris was photographed smoking out of a bong on the balcony of his house while Mr. Biden was inside. 

Mr. Miller’s complaint to the California state bar alleges that Mr. Morris was violating ethics guidelines by paying for Mr. Biden’s expenses while also serving as his lawyer.

Mr. Morris’s role as part of Mr. Biden’s legal team was recently highlighted when he made a dramatic and unexpected appearance on Capitol Hill alongside Mr. Biden and his attorney, Abbe Lowell, at an Oversight Committee meeting where members were debating the prospect of holding the first son in contempt of Congress for defying a congressional subpoena. 

Messrs. Morris, Biden, and Lowell strode into the hearing room without warning and sat silently in the audience as Chairman James Comer refused requests from Democrats to swear in Mr. Biden to give immediate public testimony — which he insisted he would do before telling investigators he would eventually comply with the subpoena. 

Days later, Mr. Biden folded and, before being formally held in contempt, agreed to give a closed-door deposition, which has yet to be scheduled. He is facing felony charges on both coasts for tax evasion and lying about his drug use to buy a handgun. Mr. Biden continues to be under investigation by Special Counsel David Weiss, who could yet charge him with violating the Foreign Agent Registration Act during his lucrative work for foreign clients in Ukraine, Communist China, and other countries.