Top Republicans are slamming President Biden for attempting to hide his involvement with his son’s business dealings following a new report that the president sat in on at least 24 calls with Hunter’s business partners.
‘It’s so disturbing,’ House Ways and Means Chairman Jason Smith, R-Mo., said on Fox & Friends Monday.
‘What we have found with the information that’s come out from whistleblowers – for example the WhatsApp message that apparently Hunter Biden was seated next to his father waiting for a phone call from a Chinese foreign business partner, said ‘we are here, looking forward to your phone call.”
‘It shows that, in fact, President Biden did not just know about his son’s business dealings, he then reverted in saying that he is not involved in his son’s business dealings.’
‘This is just like the [IRS] whistleblowers highlighted,’ continued Smith.
Last week, two IRS whistleblowers Gary Shapley and Joseph Ziegler testified under oath that the uncovered WhatsApp messages between Hunter and a Chinese energy official appear to be evidence of a ‘direct contradiction to what President Biden was saying about not being involved in Hunter’s overseas business dealings.’
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
The president’s son was staying at the guest house of Biden’s Delaware home when he wrote to Communist Party official Henry Zhao on July 30, 2017 on WhatsApp, threatening him to follow his ‘orders’.
‘I am sitting here with my father and we would like to understand why the commitment made has not been fulfilled.’ Hunter wrote in 2017 according to testimony by IRS whistleblower Gary Shapley released by the GOP.
Hunter then said, according to the testimony: ‘Tell the director that I would like to resolve this now before it gets out of hand, and now means tonight.
According to the conversation from 2017, Zang also said he ‘wants to convey ‘his best regards to you, Jim and VP.”
The White House has maintained that Biden has never been involved with Hunter’s business dealings.
Hunter’s top business associate 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 canceled his scheduled depositions three times, but still expected to testify before the committee as soon as this week.
On Sunday, The New York Post reported Archer is expected to tell the committee Joe spoke to Hunter’s business associates, including those at Burisma, at least 24 times.
Archer and another business associate, Tony Bobulinski, have both said 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 look forward to speaking soon with Devon Archer about Joe Biden’s involvement in his family’s business affairs,’ House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer said in a statement to DailyMail.com on Monday.
‘Joe Biden lied to the American people when he said he knew nothing about his son’s business dealings,’ he added. ‘Evidence continues to be revealed that Joe Biden was very much involved in his family’s corrupt influence peddling schemes and he likely benefited financially.’
‘It certainly appears that Joe Biden and his family put themselves first and Americans last, but corporate media and the Justice Department continue to cover up for the Bidens,’ the chairman continued.
‘Joe Biden is compromised,’ House GOP Conference Chairwoman Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., told DailyMail.com.
‘With each passing day our investigations into the Biden Family’s influence peddling scheme uncovers more and more damning evidence proving that Joe Biden not only knew about his family’s foreign business deals but was illegally involved in them,’ she continued.
‘House Republicans will leave no stone unturned as we continue our rigorous investigations of Joe Biden and hold him accountable.’
Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, called the revelations ‘stunning’ in a tweet Monday.
Joe Biden, who was vice president from 2009-2017, 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 is also expected to say that Joe Biden only spoke vaguely during the brief call to greet the two businessmen.
Hunter and Joe Biden are pictured together in April 2016
James Comer, chair of the House Oversight Committee and Jason Smith (right) at the IRS whistleblower hearing
Comer and the committee are interested in the communications because, at the time, Joe Biden was serving as President 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.
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 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.
Hunter Biden is seen on the balcony of the White House on July 4 along with First Lady Jill and First Son Hunter
‘Joe Biden is compromised,’ House GOP Conference Chairwoman Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., told DailyMail.com
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.’
Last week, the IRS whistleblowers Shapley and Ziegler both said that Hunter Biden had been given preferential treatment by the Justice Department.
Hunter agreed a plea deal for lying on his tax returns. He also agreed a deal over charges of lying on a gun permit application: he said he did not use drugs, when he has since admitted to addiction.
