President Joe Biden has always claimed ignorance of his son Hunter’s business activities – an assertion that is, in itself, a little puzzling. Still, Devon Archer, who was perhaps Hunter Biden’s closest associate and partner, will testify before the House Oversight Committee that the senior Biden was a central figure in the securing of various deals brokered by Archer and Hunter. That is, according to committee Chairman James Comer (R-KY). A potential stumbling block is that Archer has repeatedly delayed his testimony – three times so far, Comer revealed on Senator Ted Cruz's podcast Verdict. The Kentucky representative, however, remains confident the tea will be spilled at the end of the month.
On Monday, July 31, Devon Archer is expected to tell the committee that Hunter would frequently bring his father into calls with potential foreign business partners. If that is indeed what Archer reveals and his testimony can be corroborated, then there will be no more room for doubt that Joe Biden lied, repeatedly, to the media and to the American people.
Why is it odd that Joe Biden would claim to know nothing about his son’s business dealings? Because if everything Hunter was doing with Chinese, Ukrainian, and other overseas companies was entirely legal and legitimate, then there would simply be no need for Joe Biden to say he had no knowledge of it. Yet, he has insisted on several occasions that he had no involvement whatsoever in the said deals and that he never discussed business with Hunter. It brings to mind Gertrude, the mother of Shakespeare’s Prince Hamlet, who uttered the famously cynical line, “The lady doth protest too much, methinks.”
Should Joe Fear What Devon Archer Has to Say?
Quite apart from that simple logic, there is the evidence, in the form of photos, emails, phone calls, and White House visitor logs, that Joe Biden and Devon Archer were well acquainted. There are the frequent references Hunter made to his father during various communications with foreign businessmen from whom he was trying to extract financial commitments. Also, Hunter Biden stated during a 2021 CBS interview that he would speak with his father on the phone “every night.”
(Photo by Teresa Kroeger/Getty Images for World Food Program USA)
All of this, and still Joe Biden had no idea what his son and Devon Archer were doing? That seems hard to swallow, but it could still be the truth, however unlikely. What Archer tells the GOP-led Oversight Committee at the end of July will put the matter of Joe Biden’s involvement to rest.
Archer is looking at a stretch in prison for a multi-million-dollar bond fraud that did not involve the younger Biden. Will Democrats and their loyal media friends try to discredit Archer, a fraudster facing incarceration? No doubt they will. Recall, though, that these same people thought disgraced and imprisoned attorney Michael Avenatti credible enough when he railed against former President Donald Trump. They believed Trump’s former “fixer,” Michael Cohen, was an upstanding guy once he turned on his former boss. Cohen also was embroiled in legal problems and went to jail. By comparison – and by the same standard – Devon Archer must be viewed as a reliable source.
A New York Post report describes one of the instances of Joe Biden’s participation in a business-related call that Archer will reportedly detail at his hearing. This happened in late 2015 and involved Hunter Biden putting his dad on the phone with Mykola Zlochevsky, the owner of Ukrainian energy company Burisma Holdings, and Vadym Pozharskyi, a senior Burisma executive. Hunter and Devon Archer both had lucrative positions on Burisma’s board of directors. Much of that story has already been well-documented. Burisma was being investigated by Ukraine’s prosecutor-general. A Burisma executive later revealed to a trusted FBI source that the company paid Joe and Hunter Biden to make the investigation go away. Some months later, then-Vice President Joe Biden threatened to withhold a billion dollars in US loan guarantees unless the Ukrainians fired their top prosecutor. They did so shortly afterward. Joe Biden is on record bragging about how he made that happen.
What Republican investigators get from Archer and the follow-up efforts to verify whatever he tells them will either exonerate Joe Biden or prove him guilty of deceit and of involvement in likely criminal activity. That is by no means the end of the Biden family scandal, though. If even half of what Republicans are suggesting is true, Joe Biden will find himself at the center of a political storm few other presidents have seen.
