Hunter Biden’s friend to tell Congress then-VP Joe joined dozens of son’s business meetings via phone: report
Fox News
Devon Archer, a former best friend and business associate of Hunter Biden in Ukraine, is expected to testify under oath to Congress this week that President Biden met with dozens of Hunter’s business associates while he was serving as vice president between 2009 and 2017.
Fox News Digital has confirmed that Archer has been subpoenaed by the House Oversight Committee and could testify as early as Thursday, July 27. The expected testimony could cast further doubt on President Biden’s repeated claims that he had no knowledge of his son’s foreign business dealings or of having any influence on them.
Miranda Devine, a New York Post columnist and Fox News contributor, reported Monday that Archer, 48, is expected to tell the House Oversight Committee about meetings he witnessed attended by both Bidens — Hunter and Joe — either in person or via telephone. During the meetings, Hunter would specifically introduce his father to foreign business partners or prospective investors, Archer is expected to testify.
The House Oversight Committee subpoenaed Archer to speak as House Republicans continue to investigate whether the Bidens used the influence then-Vice President Biden had in the White House to elicit these deals and other alleged Biden family corruption. The committee told Fox News it believes the president communicated in some form with Hunter Biden’s business associates.
“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,” the committee said in a statement.
The committee invited Archer to testify as he was sentenced last year to one year in prison for his role in a $60 million bond fraud involving various clients. At least three previously planned dispositions were canceled by Archer for personal reasons.
“Joe Biden lied to the American people when he said he knew nothing about his son’s business dealings,” committee chairman Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., said in a statement on Monday. “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. This includes deals with a corrupt Ukrainian oligarch and a CCP-linked energy company that generated millions for the Bidens and undermined American interests.”
Comer added, “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 Oversight Committee will continue to follow the facts to provide the transparency and accountability that the American people demand and deserve. We look forward to speaking soon with Devon Archer about Joe Biden’s involvement in his family’s business affairs.”
Devine, also the author of “Laptop from Hell,” reported Archer is expected to testify on specific examples of the elder Biden getting involved in his son’s business deals, including an evening meeting in Dubai on Friday, Dec. 4, 2015, which ultimately saw Hunter Biden meeting with Ukrainian energy company Burisma owner Mykola Zlochevsky and calling his dad during their conversation.
At the time, Burisma was paying Hunter $83,000 a month to serve as a director, Devine reported.
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According to Devine, Archer, who was also a director, is expected to testify that the call between Joe, Hunter and Hunter’s business partners came after he and Hunter had dinner with the Burisma board at the Burj Al Arab Hotel. Archer and Hunter reportedly left the meeting and traveled to the Four Seasons Resort Dubai at Jumeirah Beach when Vadym Pozharskyi, a senior Burisma executive, called them and said Zlochevsky needed to urgently speak with Hunter.
The two Ukrainians then reportedly joined Hunter and Archer at the Four Seasons, where Pozharskyi specifically asked Hunter, “Can you ring your dad?”
According to Devine, Archer is expected to testify that Hunter called his father, who was in Washington, D.C., at the time, and introduced the Ukrainians by their first names. Then the younger Biden emphasized that the Burisma executives “need our support.”
Then-Vice President Biden acknowledged the Ukrainians, as he did in other calls with Hunter’s business partners, but kept the conversation brief, Archer is expected to testify.
Devine reported that committee members are likely to ask Archer about the context surrounding that meeting as three days after that conversation, on Dec. 9, 2015, then-Vice President Biden, who was former President Obama’s point man for Ukrainian issues, flew to Kyiv to address the Ukrainian parliament.
At the time, Zlochevsky was being investigated by Ukrainian Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin for corruption and, just two months later, Shokin seized four of Zlochevsky’s houses in Kyiv, two plots of land and a Rolls-Royce, Devine reported.
A month after the seizure, then-Vice President Biden threatened to withhold $1 billion in U.S. aid to Ukraine unless Shokin was fired. Then-Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko promptly fired Shokin.
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Biden later bragged to the Council on Foreign Relations during an event in January 2018, saying, “I looked at them and said, ‘I’m leaving in six hours. If the prosecutor is not fired, you’re not getting the money.’ Well, he got fired.”
Members of the House Oversight Committee are expected to ask Archer about the timing of the firing as Shokin was also investigating Burisma at the time.
The New York Post previously reported an email sent on Nov. 2, 2015 that shows Pozharskyi was ratcheting up pressure on Hunter and Archer to use their influence to “close down” Shokin’s investigation into Burisma.
President Biden has repeatedly defended the firing as pointing back to Poroshenko, who said Shokin was corrupt and was slow walking efforts to clear corruption in the prosecutor’s office. Biden and the U.S. were also not the only entities advocating for Shokin to be removed.
According to a Congressional Research Service report published in Jan. 2017, International Monetary Fund Managing Director Christine Lagarde threatened to withhold $40 billion unless Ukraine undertook “a substantial new effort” to clear corruption in the government.
The CRS report said Shokin submitted his resignation in February 2016 and was subsequently removed.
However, Just last week, Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, released an FBI document describing an allegation that Zlochevsky told an FBI informant he paid a $10 million bribe to Joe and Hunter Biden in 2016 “to ensure Ukraine Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin was fired.”
The FBI document, known as an FD-1023, shows Zlochevsky calling Joe Biden “the big guy.”
Archer is expected to testify the “big guy” was a title other people in Biden’s circle used to refer to the elder Biden.
According to Devine, Hunter Biden’s former business partner in Los Angeles, Tony Bobulinski, also met with Hunter and Joe. In an email sent to Hunter, Bobulinski refers to then-Vice President Biden as “the big guy.”
Archer also is expected to tell the committee about other instances — as many as two dozen times in Archer’s presence — where Hunter called his father and put him on speaker to impress prospective investors, Devine reported.
His testimony is expected to include information about dinners Hunter organized, so his father could meet his foreign business partners, Devine wrote.
A Fox News Digital review found that Biden personally met with several of Hunter’s business associates from the U.S., Mexico, Ukraine, China and Kazakhstan over the course of his vice presidency.
Joe Biden met with two of Hunter’s since-dissolved investment fund partners, former Colombia President Andrés Pastrana Arango and Eric Schwerin, at the Naval Observatory — the official residence of the vice president — on March 2, 2012, the New York Post reported.
According to emails reviewed by Fox News Digital, the elder Biden also met with two of Hunter’s Mexican business associates, Miguel Aleman Velasco and Miguel Aleman Magnani, when they visited the West Wing on Feb. 26, 2014. Joe and Hunter Biden also gave Velasco and Magnani a tour of the White House Brady Press Briefing room.
Emails reviewed by Fox News Digital, also showed Hunter arranged a video conference with his father and Carlos Slim, a Mexican billionaire with whom Hunter was seeking to do business with at the time, on Oct. 30, 2015.
Joe, Hunter, and Hunter’s business partner Jeff Cooper hosted another meeting at the Naval Observatory, located at Number One Observatory Circle in Washington D.C., for Slim, Velasco and Magnani on Nov. 19, 2015.
At the time, Hunter and Cooper were interested in investing in a Mexican energy company with the business executives, the Daily Mail reported.
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In February 2016, Hunter and Cooper flew on Air Force 2 to Mexico City, where Hunter wrote an email to Magnani that he would be personally attending a meeting between Joe and then-Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto.
In the same email, Hunter said Magnani had not spoken to him “for months” despite Hunter delivering “on every single thing you’ve ever asked,” which included bringing guests to meet his father.
“I have brought every single person you have ever asked me to bring to the F’ing White House and the Vice President’s house and the inauguration and then you go completely silent,” Hunter wrote in the email. “I don’t know what it is that I did but I’d like to know why I’ve delivered on every single thing you’ve ever asked – and you make me feel like I’ve done something to offend you.”
Joe Biden also attended a dinner with Hunter’s business associates from Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Russia at the Georgetown restaurant Café Milano in Washington, D.C., on April 16, 2015, emails from Hunter Biden’s abandoned laptop show.
One such email from Hunter to Archer shared a guest list for the dinner, which included Burisma’s Pozharskyi, late Moscow Mayor Yury Luzhkov and his wife, Russian billionaire Yelena Baturina, who was in business with Hunter’s Rosemont firm. It is not clear if these individuals ultimately attended the dinner.
The day after the 2015 meeting, Pozharskyi emailed Hunter thanking him for introducing him to his father.
Devine reported that Archer is expected to answer questions from the committee about these Café Milano meetings.
A close associate of Archer’s said he believes it is his “civic duty” to testify before the committee, Devine reported.
According to Devine, the associate said Archer 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. In a forum where he has immunity he can at least start to speak truth.”
Fox News’ Gillian Turner, Chad Pergram and Jessica Chasmar contributed to this report.