Democrat downplays Hunter Biden associate Devon Archer’s testimony

Former Hunter Biden business associate Devon Archer said during closed-door testimony that Hunter included President Biden on a number of phone calls that presumably included business associates, according to one lawmaker’s account of the testimony, a revelation that is likely to fuel Republican attempts to link the president to his son’s business dealings.

But the Democratic lawmaker said that Archer’s testimony to the House Oversight and Accountability Committee did not show that the president was involved in Hunter Biden’s business dealings.

“The witness indicated that Hunter spoke to his father every day, and approximately 20 times over the course of 10 year relationship, Hunter may have put his father on the phone with any number of different people, and they never once spoke about any business dealings,” Rep. Dan Goldman (D-N.Y.) said.

“As he described it, it was all casual conversation, niceties, the weather, ‘What’s going on?’” Goldman said, adding that, “There wasn’t a single conversation about any of the business dealings that Hunter had.”

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), who was also in the interview, told reporters that Archer had revealed new information but declined to elaborate further.

The readout of the testimony appears to partially back up House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer’s (R-Ky.) statement to the New York Post last week that he expected Archer to discuss the times he “has witnessed Joe Biden meeting with Hunter Biden’s overseas business partners when he was vice president, including on speakerphone.”

Asked last week about allegations that the president had communicated directly with his son’s foreign business associates, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said that the president “was never in business with his son.”

The interview follows a letter from the Department of Justice over the weekend, regarding Archer’s sentencing for an unrelated matter, that is adding to GOP claims of government obstruction of their investigation into the Biden family’s business dealings — even as Archer’s attorney beat down the speculation.

The Justice Department (DOJ) in its letter requested that a judge set a date for Archer to start his one-year prison sentence for his conviction for defrauding a Native American tribe, despite Archer’s counsel saying it was “premature” to do so because of an anticipated appeal and an “error” in sentencing.

That set off alarm bells in the GOP.

“I don’t know if this a coincidence, or if this is another example of the weaponization of the Department of Justice,” Comer said Sunday on Fox News.

Other Republicans went further, accusing the DOJ of explicit interference in the GOP-led investigation. Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) said lawmakers should return from an August recess for emergency hearings if Archer did not show up.

But Archer’s attorney stressed the letter would not impact his planned interview, which had been rescheduled multiple times since Comer subpoenaed him in June.

“We are aware of speculation that the Department of Justice’s weekend request to have Mr. Archer report to prison is an attempt by the Biden administration to intimidate him in advance of his meeting with the House Oversight Committee on Monday,” Archer’s lawyer Matthew Schwartz said in a Sunday statement, first provided to Politico. “To be clear, Mr. Archer does not agree with that speculation. In any case, Mr. Archer will do what he has planned to do all along, which is to show up on Monday and to honestly answer the questions that are put to him by the Congressional investigators.”

The DOJ said in a subsequent letter that it was not requesting that Archer surrender before his expected congressional testimony.

His appearance went on as scheduled. A smiling Archer did not answer shouted questions as he arrived at the interview with his lawyer Monday morning.

The interview will consist of four hours of questioning divided evenly between Republicans and Democrats and is expected to end mid-afternoon. In addition to Jordan and Goldman, Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.) attended the Archer interview.

“I believe he can tell us things we haven’t heard before,” Biggs said.

Goldman cast doubt on the GOP attempts to link the president to his son’s business dealings.

“We’re all waiting for any pin, whether it be a linchpin or other pin, to figure out how this is connected at all to President Biden,” Goldman said.

Updated at 2:02 p.m.