by WorldTribune Staff, May 1, 2026 Non-AI Real World News
The former lawyer and well-known “sugar brother” of Hunter Biden has been ordered to pay the legal fees of Garrett Ziegler and Marco Polo, the research group he founded which published an online database of the infamous Hunter Biden laptop.
Kevin Morris, who reportedly loaned Hunter Biden approximately $6.5 million to bankroll his lavish lifestyle, was ordered by the Superior Court of California to pay Ziegler $50,000.
“The ruling ends a protracted dispute over whether Ziegler impersonated a Democratic strategist to pry sensitive information out of Morris about the Hunter Biden laptop during a conversation over the phone in 2022,” Fox News Digital reported on Thursday.
Ziegler’s representation had requested as much as $300,000 to conclude the case.
Morris’s legal battle with Ziegler began in 2022 when Morris picked up the phone and spoke with someone whom he thought was a Democrat operative about the laptop. But when, after the call, he received an image depicting a squid, the phrase “NOTHING IS BEYOND OUR REACH,” and the words “Marco Polo,” Morris said he realized his mistake.
Morris concluded the caller must have been Ziegler, a Republican strategist who had worked on combing through the contents of the laptop and who had gone on to found Marco Polo. Ziegler also previously worked in the White House Office of Trade and Manufacturing Policy as a policy analyst.
Morris sued Ziegler, accusing him of harassment, criminal harassment, criminal impersonation, false light and intentional infliction of emotional distress.
“The case soon soured for Morris when he failed to establish a connection between his phone call and Ziegler,” the Fox report said.
Jennifer Holliday, Ziegler’s attorney, said the judgment doesn’t even begin to make up for three years of legal battles.
“It’s not really how I envisioned it would play out, and I don’t think that’s how the Constitution envisions that something like this would play out — which is why we filed a petition with the Supreme Court of the United States to review,” Holliday told Fox News Digital.
Holliday noted that Morris had kept up his case for three years without ever offering evidence that the call had been linked to Ziegler.
“There was no phone number that was ever presented to the court, to the Court of Appeal, to me, in discovery, anywhere,” Holliday said.
Ziegler said Morris was an enabler of Hunter Biden who had knowingly brought a weak case against him.
“Morris is the one responsible for all the bull—- that Hunter pulled over the last couple years,” Ziegler said, referring to funding Morris reportedly gave the younger Biden for his legal services, including paying his rent, buying his art and lending him a private jet, among other payments.
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