Former President Ronald Reagan’s son, Michael Reagan, weighed in on first son Hunter Biden’s recent controversies.
And he has something to say about President Joe Biden joining in on Hunter’s business calls.
Hunter Biden’s former business partner told Congress Monday that Hunter sold the “illusion of access” to his father by taking credit for things his father did as vice president that he had no part in, Democrats admitted after hearing from former associate Devon Archer.
Hunter would often put his famous father on speakerphone to impress clients and business associates.
Reagan, as a former first son, said that both Bidens knew what they were doing.
“In the eight years that my father was President of the United States I never once sat in the room with business associates and called him on the phone,” Michael Reagan said about his father Ronald’s time in the Oval Office.
“If I had, the Democrats would have skewered me,” he said.
The Republican-led House Oversight Committee conducted a more than-five hour interview with Archer on Monday as part of its expanding congressional inquiry into the Biden family businesses as the GOP explores a potential impeachment inquiry into the president.
Both Republican and Democratic lawmakers inside the closed-door interview said Archer testified that over the span of 10 years, Hunter Biden put his father on the phone around 20 times while in the company of associates.
Rep. Andy Biggs, a Republican member of the Oversight Committee, came out of the interview saying that testimony implicated the president directly. “I think we should do an impeachment inquiry,” the Arizona lawmaker told reporters.
Biggs, reading from his notes, said Archer testified that the Ukrainian gas company “Burisma would have gone out of business sooner if the Biden brand had not been invoked. People would be intimidated to legally mess with Burisma because of the Biden family brand.”
Focusing on that idea, Rep. James Comer, the GOP chairman of the Oversight Committee, said in a statement late Monday that “Joe Biden was ‘the brand’ that his son sold around the world to enrich the Biden family.”
“We are aware that all sides are claiming victory following Mr. Archer’s voluntary interview today,” Archer’s attorney, Matthew Schwartz, said in a statement. “But all Devon Archer did was exactly what we said he would: Show up and answer the questions put to him honestly and completely.”
He added, “Mr. Archer shared the truth with the committee, and we will leave to them and others to decide what to do with it.”
The White House claimed the testimony fell short of House Republicans promise to deliver “bombshell evidence.”
Archer, who served with Hunter Biden on the board of Burisma, has long been seen by Republicans as a key witness in their search to directly connect the president to his son’s various international business transactions.
Comer had 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 whistleblower 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, the oil-and-gas company where Hunter Biden was on the board.
Democrats on the committee, including Maryland Rep. Jamie Raskin, the ranking minority member, have reiterated that the Justice Department investigated the Burisma claim when Donald Trump was president and closed the matter after eight months.
The Horn editorial team and the Associated Press contributed to this article