Hunter Biden’s former business partner appeared Monday for closed-door testimony on Capitol Hill to answer Republicans’ questions about claims that President Joe Biden was directly involved in his younger son’s financial dealings.
The Republican-led House Oversight Committee conducted a transcribed interview with Devon Archer as part of its expanding congressional inquiry into the Biden family businesses as the GOP explores a potential impeachment inquiry into the president.
Archer dropped a bombshell on the committee, according to early reports.
“Miranda Devine, a New York Post columnist and Fox News contributor, reported last week that Archer, who co-founded Hunter’s now-dissolved investment firm Rosemont Seneca Partners, is expected to tell committee members that Hunter Biden would routinely introduce his father to foreign business partners and prospective investors,” Fox News reported Monday.
Archer, who served with Hunter Biden on the board of the Ukrainian gas company Burisma, had been seen by Republicans as a key witness in their search to directly connect the president to his son’s various international business transactions.
Kentucky Rep. James Comer, the GOP chairman of the Oversight Committee, issued a subpoena to Archer in June, saying he “played a significant role in the Biden family’s business deals abroad, including but not limited to China, Russia, and Ukraine.” He said Archer’s testimony would be critical to the committee’s investigation.
Republicans have focused much attention on a tip to the FBI that alleged a bribery scheme involving Joe Biden when he was vice president.
The claim, which first emerged in 2019, was that Biden pressured Ukraine to fire its top prosecutor in order to stop an investigation into Burisma, an oil-and-gas company where Hunter Biden was on the board. GOP lawmakers and staff present at Monday’s interview were also expected to question Archer about several business meetings and conversations Hunter Biden had during which he is said to have invoked his father’s name — or business calls that his father joined.
On top of his relationship with Hunter Biden, who is currently facing federal tax and firearm charges, Archer has his own legal troubles stemming from a 2018 felony conviction for his role in a conspiracy to defraud a Native American tribe. That conviction was overturned later that year, but then the court of appeals in New York reinstated it in 2020. His sentencing in the case has been repeatedly delayed by appeals.
Archer’s appearance before lawmakers had been scheduled and canceled several times since June. Republicans suggested it was about to be delayed again after the Justice Department over the weekend asked a judge to schedule a date for Archer to surrender to prison and begin serving out his one-year sentence in the unrelated fraud case.
Republicans — led by Comer — criticized that delay, calling it an effort by the Justice Department to intimidate a witness. But the Justice Department in a follow-up memo to the court noted Archer’s surrender was not imminent and asked a judge to ensure that he testified to Congress before reporting to prison.
“Mr. Archer will do what he has planned to do all along, which is to show up this morning and to honestly answer the questions that are put to him by the congressional investigators,” said Archer’s attorney, Matthew Schwartz, who is a managing partner at New York-based firm Boies Schiller Flexner.
Biden’s lawyer had a difficult time answering questions about Archer’s testimony. Take a look —
🚨ITS HAPPENING🚨
Biden’s de facto lawyer Rep. Daniel Goldman is visually shaken, sweaty and in PANIC after hearing Devon Archer’s testimony.
Goldman admits Joe DID coordinate with Hunter's business associates but he was just to “say hi”
Watch the PANICpic.twitter.com/WVEYbYPnWW
— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) July 31, 2023
The Horn editorial team and the Associated Press contributed to this article