President Donald Trump just dropped a bombshell on Hunter Biden by pardoning whistleblower Devon Archer, the former business partner of Hunter, during a Cabinet meeting on Tuesday.
Archer was unfairly prosecuted by the Biden administration after testifying about allegedly illegal Biden family foreign business dealings, Trump said.
“I think he was treated very unfairly,” Trump said before signing the pardon at the White House. “And I looked at the record, studied the record, and he was a victim of a crime, as far as I’m concerned. So we’re going to undo that.”
Archer was convicted in 2018 of defrauding a Native American tribe by selling more than $60 million in fraudulent tribal bonds.
Trump aide Will Scharf explained the rationale behind the pardon while presenting the document for the president’s signature.
“He was prosecuted relating to a fraud investigation, but notably, the tone and tenor of that prosecution changed dramatically after he began to cooperate with congressional investigators and serve as a witness against Hunter Biden and the Biden family,” Scharf said. “We believe that was an injustice.”
President Trump has pardoned Devon Archer. pic.twitter.com/FKU8FWKhcU
— Freyja™ (@FreyjaTarte) March 25, 2025
Archer’s legal battle included multiple appeals, with Manhattan U.S. District Judge Ronnie Abrams initially overturning his conviction in November 2018, ruling there wasn’t enough evidence against him while upholding the convictions of his two co-defendants.
Appeals judges later reinstated the conviction, and the Supreme Court declined to hear his case last year.
Following the pardon, Archer expressed gratitude to Trump in a statement.
“I want to extend my deepest thanks to President Trump. I am grateful to the president for recognizing that I was the victim of a convoluted lawfare effort intended to destroy and silence me,” Archer said. “Like so many people, my life was devastated by the Biden family’s selfish disregard for the truth and for the peace of mind and happiness of others. The Bidens talk about justice, but they don’t mean it.”
In an interview with Fox News the night before his pardon, Archer explained that he was collateral damage from investigations into Hunter Biden.
“I was a victim of financial fraud in which I invested a lot of money and was taken down on a whistleblower that was blowing the whistle on Hunter,” Archer told Fox News’ Jesse Watters.
Archer became a key witness for House Republicans investigating the Biden family’s business dealings. In testimony before the House Oversight Committee in 2023, Archer explained that Hunter Biden put his father, then-Vice President Joe Biden, on speaker phone during business meetings approximately 20 times.
He testified that “the Big Guy” Joe Biden met with Chinese businessman Jonathan Li during a December 2013 trip to Beijing shortly before Hunter Biden launched a state-backed investment fund with Li as CEO.
Archer also revealed that the then-vice president attended two dinners at DC’s Cafe Milano restaurant in 2014 and 2015 with his son’s business associates from Eastern Europe and Central Asia.
House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, supported Trump’s decision.
“I think it was entirely appropriate for the President,” Jordan told reporters. “Devin Archer came and testified, he’s want to talk to us about the ‘Big Guy’ and some of the things that took place.”
Trump had promised Archer clemency during a meeting at the NCAA wrestling championships in Philadelphia last Saturday.
“He’s getting a full pardon. He was screwed by the Bidens. They destroyed him like they tried to destroy a lot of people,” Trump told The New York Post.
Archer, a father of three, is reportedly writing a book about his experiences, to be published by Post Hill, which also published “Laptop From Hell” about Hunter Biden’s abandoned laptop.
Hunter Biden was vice chairman of Burnham Financial Group, where Archer worked, and other foreign groups where he earned millions while his father was in office.
During the final weeks of the Biden administration, Hunter Biden received a full, retroactive pardon from his father that stretched back a decade.