Hunter Biden‘s former business partner will testify that he called his father during meetings with clients and put him on speakerphone to talk to them, according to a report.
Devon Archer, 48, was subpoenaed on June 12 by the House Oversight Committee, which is investigating Hunter’s businesses and whether he and other members of the Biden family improperly traded on their connections.
Archer has so far cancelled his scheduled depositions three times, The Washington Examiner reported, but is still intending on speaking to the committee. They go on recess for the summer break in August.
On Sunday, The New York Post reported that Archer would tell the committee that Joe Biden spoke to Hunter’s business associates at least 24 times.
Devon Archer, far left, is seen playing golf in the Hamptons with Hunter Biden (far right) and Joe Biden (next to Hunter). Archer is expected to testify about Hunter putting Joe on the phone to clients
Hunter and Joe Biden are pictured together in April 2016. Joe was vice president from 2009-17
Archer and another business associate, Tony Bobulinski, have both said that Joe Biden offered brief greetings and platitudes rather than concrete agreements to Hunter’s business partners.
But Archer’s testimony will further challenge the White House’s insistence that Joe Biden never had any knowledge of or involvement in his wayward son’s business affairs.
‘We are looking forward very much to hearing from Devon Archer about all the times he has witnessed Joe Biden meeting with Hunter Biden’s overseas business partners when he was vice president, including on speakerphone,’ said James Comer, a Republican for Kentucky who serves as the committee chairman.
Joe Biden, who was vice president from 2009-17, spoke to Hunter’s partners on the Ukrainian energy firm Burisma in December 2015.
Hunter and Archer were in Dubai, Archer will reportedly testify, and Hunter told fellow Burisma board members they could speak to his father on the phone.
Hunter connected his father with Mykola Zlochevsky, Burisma’s owner, and Vadym Pozharskyi, a senior Burisma executive, and while they gathered around the phone, Hunter told Joe that the Ukrainian businessmen ‘need our support’.
Archer will say that Joe Biden only spoke vaguely during the brief call to greet the two businessmen.
James Comer, chair of the House Oversight Committee, has confirmed they are looking forward to Archer’s testimony. A date is not yet known
Comer and the committee are interested in the communications because, at the time, Joe Biden was serving as Barack Obama’s ‘point person’ on Ukraine, and U.S. efforts to discourage corruption.
Burisma was being investigated for corruption, and in an email to Hunter and Archer in November 2015 – one month before the speakerphone call – Pozharskyi demanded that they use their influence to ‘close down’ the criminal investigation against Burisma, The New York Post reported.
Archer will also tell the committee, the paper said, about a dinner at a restaurant in the French capital, where Hunter took out his phone and called his father, in a bid to impress potential investors.
Archer will say that Hunter would introduce his father to the people on speakerphone in about one in four calls.
Hunter Biden is seen on the balcony of the White House on July 4
At other times, he would speak to his father without telling him he was on speakerphone – leaving open the possibility that Joe did not know his son was trading off his access.
Joe Biden is known to speak to his son and his grandchildren regularly: Hunter Biden in 2021 told CBS News they speak every night.
A close associate of Archer told the New York Post that he is testifying about his time working with Hunter because he believes it is his ‘civic duty.’
Archer was sentenced to one year and a day in prison in February 2022 for defrauding a Native American tribal entity and various investment advisory clients of tens of millions of dollars, in connection with the issuance of $60 million in bonds.
Archer’s associate said he felt the fraud case was a way to silence him.
He has ‘nothing to hide, no revenge to enact nor anyone to protect other than his family and he feels he has been handcuffed by the absurdly bogus [fraud] case into remaining silent,’ the source told The Post.
‘In a forum where he has immunity he can at least start to speak truth.’
