Hunter Biden has sold more than $1.5 million in artwork, thanks largely to purchases from two donors to his father, President Joe Biden, according to the first son’s former gallerist.
George Berges told House investigators in closed-door testimony last week that a majority of the sales from Hunter Biden’s artwork came from these two buyers, according to a transcript reviewed by the Washington Examiner.
Berges said that Elizabeth Naftali spent nearly $100,000 on two piece of Hunter Biden’s artwork. She purchased her first piece on Feb. 17, 2021, shortly after Joe Biden took office, and, less than five months later, was appointed by Joe Biden to a plum position on a little-known but prestigious panel called the U.S. Commission for the Preservation of America’s Heritage Abroad. She purchased the second piece in December that year.
Kevin Morris, an entertainment lawyer, spent $875,000 on Hunter Biden’s art, purchasing it from Berges over the phone through an entity called Kuliaky Art on Jan. 19, 2023, according to Berges.
Naftali and Morris are both prominent Democratic donors and each contributed thousands toward electing Joe Biden in 2020, according to federal election data.
Berges said Morris had seen Hunter Biden’s artwork before at an exhibit, and that he and Morris would later negotiate one lump sum for 11 pieces of artwork. The art gallerist said that the arrangement was unusual, however, because Morris only paid Berges a portion of the $875,000 for commission and said that the rest of the money owed to Hunter Biden from the sale would actually be put toward a debt the first son owed Morris.
“He had to have known that [Morris] was the buyer because normally the gallery would then write a check for the artist commission but I didn’t. So I just got paid for my portion, for the gallery’s portion, and they — they negotiated there,” Berges said.
Morris became Hunter Biden’s financial saving grace beginning in 2020, when the first son had allegedly accumulated more than a million dollars in unpaid taxes while maintaining a lavish lifestyle, according to a federal indictment. Morris loaned and gifted Hunter Biden nearly $5 million beginning that year, according to witness testimony and documents.
In addition to Naftali and Morris, Berges’s business partner William Jaques also purchased tens of thousands of dollars in Hunter Biden’s art beginning in December 2020. A committee aide estimated during the interview with Berges that between the three of them, they made up 70 percent of Hunter Biden’s art sales, and the first son knew the identities of all of them.
Since summer 2021, the White House has said safeguards were in place to prevent Hunter Biden from knowing the identities of buyers to prevent potential conflicts of interest.
Berges explained that he initially had one contract in place with Hunter Biden beginning in late 2020, under which Hunter Biden required Berges to disclose the identities of his buyers to him. But a second contract was established between the pair in September 2021 that contained the opposite provision. In that contract, Hunter Biden required his buyers to be anonymous.
After then-White House press secretary Jen Psaki said the White House had “provided suggestions for” the second contract, Berges said he was “surprised” to hear the White House’s remarks about the revision he and Hunter Biden made to arrangement.
When asked why, Berges said, “Because I hadn’t had any communication with the White House about an agreement.”
Hunter Biden would at some point come to know the identities of at least three of his buyers, despite the White House’s insistence to the public on their anonymity.
Berges told Congress he would not have been the one to unmask their identities and that there were ten total buyers.
“If he knew [their identities], it wasn’t because of me. I would have never told him, you know, like — so, if they know, it’s because they know but not because of me,” Berges said.
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Berges admitted, however, that the contract provided no ramifications if Hunter Biden found out who purchased his art. The president’s son appears to know that Naftali, Morris, and Jacques bought his art from Berges.
Naftali’s purchase first made headlines last summer, meaning Hunter Biden would have known about the purchase at least from news reports. Her appointment to the commission was also reported at the time, but Berges’s testimony clarified that she did not receive the appointment until after purchasing Hunter Biden’s artwork, potentially raising ethics concerns.