Hunter Biden’s former business partner Devon Archer confirmed what Republicans suspected when it came to his appointment to the board of directors of the Ukrainian energy firm Burisma during closed-door testimony before the House Oversight Committee.
Hunter Biden and Joe Biden Have a Problem
“Devon Archer testified that the value of adding Hunter Biden to Burisma’s board was ‘the brand’ and confirmed that then-Vice President Joe Biden was ‘the brand,’” the House Oversight Committee said in a statement. “Archer admitted that ‘Burisma would have gone out of business if ‘the brand’ had not been attached to it.’”
The committee statement continued, “He believed that Hunter Biden being on the board and the Biden brand contributed to Burisma’s longevity. People would have been intimidated to mess with Burisma legally because of the Biden brand.”
Republicans Alleged Hunter Biden Joined Burisma for Corrupt Reasons
Republicans have long suspected that Hunter Biden received the position on the company’s board as part of a pay-to-play scheme. They also claimed that then Vice President Joe Biden had pressured the Ukrainian government to fire its Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin in March 2016. The firing came on the heels of a December 2015 meeting between then-Vice President Joe Biden and then-Ukrainian President Poro Poroshenko.
Burisma played an important role in the first Trump-Biden debate in September 2020.
“China ate your lunch, Joe. And no wonder, your son goes there he takes out billions of dollars. Takes out billions of dollars to manage. He makes millions of dollars,” Trump said. “What did he do to deserve it? What did he do with Burisma?”
Biden denied it, saying, “None of that is true … My son did nothing wrong at Burisma.”
Burisma-Linked Figure Claimed Hunter Biden was its Insurance Policy
Hunter Biden joined the Burisma board in April 2014 in the wake of the Maidan Revolution that toppled Ukraine’s pro-Russian president, Viktor Yanukovych. Burisma’s founder Mykola Zlochevsky served as minister of Ecology and Natural Resources in the Yanukovych government. Former Ukrainian parliamentarian Oleksandr Onyshchenko, a close associate of Zlochevsky’s, told Reuters in 2019 that Zlochevsky put Biden on his board as an insurance policy.
“It was to protect (the company),” Onyshchenko said, noting the corrupt Ukrainian oligarch needed protection from the Ukrainian government, which has Burisma under investigation.
Archer alleged that Burisma executive Vadym Pozharskyi increased pressure on Hunter Biden to “get help from D.C.” in the run-up to Joe Biden’s December 2015 visit to Kyiv. It was unclear from the leaked accounts exactly what happened during the testimony of what Joe Biden said.
Pozharskyi attended a May 2015 dinner with Joe Biden and Yelena Baturina, the widow of Russian oligarch and former Moscow Mayor Yury Luzhkov.
The recently released FBI FD-1023 form alleges that Joe Biden and Hunter Biden each received $5 million in bribes from Zlochevsky to push the Ukrainian government to oust Shokin.
Archer was Hunter Biden’s closest business associate for years and was also close to President Joe Biden while he was vice president. White House visitor logs show that Archer met with Joe Biden on April 16, 2014, two days before the vice president visited Ukraine.
It also was two days before current National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan talked about how fracking could help Ukraine’s domestic energy prospects and the same week that Archer and Hunter Biden joined the Burisma board.
“Archer talked about the ‘big guy’ and how Hunter Biden always said, ‘We need to talk to my guy,’ ‘We need to see when my guy is going to be here,’ and those types of things,” Rep. Andy Biggs, R-Ariz., told reporters as he left the deposition.
The FD-1023 likewise referred to Joe Biden as “The Big Guy,” as did a May 2017 email from Hunter Biden business partner James Gilliar.
Archer Claims Joe Biden Participated in at Least 20 Client Meetings
Archer claimed that Joe Biden participated in at least 20 meetings with clients via speakerphone in contradiction of the president’s claims to have had no involvement in his son’s business dealings.
Joe Biden allegedly participated in a call with Chinese executive Jonathan Li, according to Archer. Li had a close relationship with the Chinese People’s Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries, an organization responsible for political influence operations in the West, according to Archer. A July 2022 report by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence notes the CPAFFC has been “the coordinating force behind China’s most prominent mechanisms of state and local influence’ in the United States.”
Archer noted that Joe Biden “had coffee” with Li and that Joe Biden wrote a college recommendation letter on behalf of Li’s daughter.
Li’s company Bohai Capital launched a business partnership with Hunter Biden and his partners called Bohai Harvest (BHR).
Republicans and Democrats Spin Archer’s Testimony
“Why did Joe Biden lie to the American people about his family’s business dealings and his involvement?” Comer told Fox. “It begs the question of what else he is hiding from the American people.”
Democrats tried to put the best face on the testimony by claiming no evidence was presented proving that Joe Biden was an active participant in the deal-making.
“To the extent that Hunter Biden used his father … in any furtherance of any of his business dealings, it was not in consultation or collaboration with his father,” Rep. Dan Goldman, D-N.Y., said according to Axios. “Did he want to have the appearance of influence to the Burisma executives? Yes, I think he did. And that was ill-advised.”
John Rossomando is a defense and counterterrorism analyst and served as Senior Analyst for Counterterrorism at The Investigative Project on Terrorism for eight years. His work has been featured in numerous publications such as The American Thinker, The National Interest, National Review Online, Daily Wire, Red Alert Politics, CNSNews.com, The Daily Caller, Human Events, Newsmax, The American Spectator, TownHall.com, and Crisis Magazine. He also served as senior managing editor of The Bulletin, a 100,000-circulation daily newspaper in Philadelphia, and received the Pennsylvania Associated Press Managing Editors first-place award for his reporting.
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