The House investigation into allegations of Hunter Biden’s influence peddling has heated up after his former business partner gave testimony that the Ukrainian energy company where he and Hunter were both board members owed its survival to the “Biden brand.”
Devon Archer was questioned in a closed-door session of the House Oversight Committee about the company Burisma.
According to Rep. Andy Biggs (R-AZ), Archer alleged in his testimony that Burisma’s association with Joe Biden kept the company from legal peril, per the Washington Examiner.
“One of the most interesting statements that was made was, I’ll give you a rough paraphrase of it, but that Burisma would have gone under without the participation of the Biden brand,” Biggs told the publication.
“Upon questioning the Biden brand, it is not Jill or Jim or anybody. It is Joe Biden. Now what he meant by that, the term he used, is that people would probably not be as inclined to legally lean on Burisma because of the Biden brand.”
Another committee member, Rep. Dan Goldman (D-NY), had a different take on Archer’s testimony.
Goldman claimed Archer had “clarified that what Hunter Biden brought was a D.C. brand” akin to a lobbyist or any other Washington, D.C., insider.
“That, in conjunction with the fact that his last name was Biden, was Hunter’s brand,” Goldman said. “But let’s be very, very clear — in no way, shape, or form did Hunter Biden advertise that his father was doing anything on his behalf. So that is a bit of a mischaracterization,” he said.
According to the Examiner, the House committee was interested in Archer’s testimony because Archer could speak directly to how Hunter included his father Joe Biden in his lobbying, and also because two IRS whistleblowers have reportedly come forward to allege that Hunter and Archer devised a plan to keep Hunter from having to pay taxes on his income from Burisma.
Archer himself has been convicted in an unrelated bond fraud case and sentenced to a year in prison. On Saturday, the U.S. Attorney’s Office that prosecuted the case asked the trial judge to schedule a date for Archer to report to prison, a request that Archer’s attorneys are fighting, per Politico.
One lawmaker accused the DOJ of requesting to jail Archer to interfere with the committee’s investigation and prevent the witness from testifying.
“The DOJ is now actively committing the crime of obstructing a congressional investigation,” Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) wrote on Twitter. “If Devin Archer isn’t in the witness chair Monday, we better haul every SOB at the DOJ before congress [sic] EVERY DAY to make them pay for this.”
