Devon Archer, a former friend and business partner to Hunter Biden, testified Monday as part of the House Oversight Committee’s investigation into the Biden family business dealings and alleged foreign corruption. Archer made several key claims, including that Hunter was brought on to the board of Ukranian energy company Burisma because of his familial connections and that Hunter put then-Vice President Joe Biden on the phone his business associates at least twenty times to demonstrate his access to US government power.
Archer’s testimony complicates the insistence from President Joe Biden, the White House and their friends in the media that President Biden was oblivious to his son’s business dealings taking place abroad in places like Ukraine and China.
“I have never discussed, with my son or my brother or with anyone else, anything having to do with their businesses. Period,” said Biden in 2019.
But recent news headlines tried to tell a different story regarding Archer’s revelations, claiming that Archer actually confirmed their perspective that President Biden had nothing to do with Hunter’s foreign business connections.
“Hunter tried to sell family name but Joe Biden never talked business, says ex-associate,” the Washington Post reported.
“Hunter Biden business associate testifies he has no knowledge of wrongdoing by Joe Biden,” NBC News said.
A New York Times article headlined, “Biden Spoke With Son’s Associates, but Not About Business, Former Partner Says,” drew serious fire on social media for for the revisionist line, “It has long been known that the elder Mr. Biden at times interacted with his son’s business partners.” The same legacy media that deliberately sought to obscure this fact from the public for years now casually accepts that yes, it happened, and asserts that no, it wasn’t a big deal.
“This thing Joe Biden has denied several times over has long been known,” Spectator contributing editor Stephen Miller noted.
New York congressman Daniel Goldman, a Democrat and former Trump impeachment counsel, similarly ignored the bombshell that was Archer confirming Joe spoke repeatedly with Hunter’s business associates, instead emphasizing that since the conversations only consisted of the normal pleasantries, such as discussions about the weather, they were totally innocent.
This reading of Archer’s testimony is, of course, deliberately obtuse. Archer does say that when Hunter put Joe on speakerphone with Hunter’s business associates, that they did not explicitly discuss business. Instead, they talked about “not necessarily the weather… it was, you know, general niceties and, you know, conversation in general, you know, about the geography, about the weather, whatever it may be.” But as Archer explains, the purpose of these phone calls was not to make deals, per se, but to prove Hunter’s access to the VP.
“I think it was, you know, a signal that… they respected and thought was of value,” Archer said of their business partners’ reaction to the calls. Archer added that he believed Burisma was able to stay in business so long because with the Biden brand attached to the company, “people would be intimidated to mess with them [Burisma]…legally.”
“People send signals and those signals are basically used as currency. And that’s kind of how a lot of DC operators and foreign tycoons and businessmen work,” Archer explained.
Interestingly, since the Oversight probe has turned the screws into the Biden family, the White House has also updated its language surrounding Biden’s alleged knowledge of his son’s business dealings. Aware that the committee findings and Archer’s testimony seem to contradict Biden’s claims to have never discussed business with his son, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre instead said in a briefing last week that Biden never did business with his son.
“I’ve been asked this question a million times… the president was never in business with his son,” Jean-Pierre declared.
He may not have signed the deals or negotiated the terms, but Archer spoke even more plainly of Biden’s involvement in Hunter’s business dealings in an interview with Tucker Carlson this week. He declared it “categorically false” that Biden had no knowledge of the deals, saying “He was aware of Hunter’s business. He met with Hunter’s business partners.”
So what will the new story be when it turns out that Biden had more knowledge and involvement than previously substantiated? That Joe was just trying to help his addict son through a tough time? That they didn’t technically do anything illegal? Or that what the Trump family did was somehow worse?
As long as the GOP investigation marches on, the Democrats and their allies in the media have proven that they are in no way ashamed to keep moving the goalposts on the Biden family’s alleged wrongdoing.
