While it looks as though President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter, has effectively bargained his way out of serious legal trouble, House Republicans continue to pursue allegations of a pay-to-play scheme that now involves multiple members of the Biden family – including the president himself. House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-KY) appears to have secured a commitment to testify from one man who could likely provide information that will help Republicans build a very strong corruption case against the chief executive.
Key Witness to Biden Family Corruption
Devon Archer may not be able to provide all the remaining pieces of the jigsaw, but he might prove to be the perfect witness. Archer is a man with intimate knowledge of many Hunter Biden business activities – and was directly connected to Ukrainian energy company Burisma – but he’s not a member of the family. Archer is looking at a year in prison and a felony conviction. Could he expect a presidential pardon? Probably not, because the optics for the senior Biden hoping for a second term in the White House would not be good. Might that pardon come after the election? If Biden were to win, possibly – but what if he doesn’t? How does all of that affect Archer’s willingness to spill the beans?
A longtime business associate of Hunter Biden, Archer was subpoenaed by Comer on June 12. Archer recently lost an appeal of a one-year prison sentence for pension fraud. His attorney has contacted the House committee to arrange a future date for his client to testify. Hunter Biden is not connected to Archer’s fraud conviction.
At the center of the Bidens’ wealth-generation efforts is the private equity firm Rosemont Seneca Partners, co-founded by Archer, Hunter Biden, and Christopher Heinz, who is former Secretary of State John Kerry’s stepson. The firm evolved into Bohai RST (Rosemont Seneca Thornton). Bohai is a Chinese firm with connections to the Chinese People’s Liberation Army and the Bank of China. The Thornton Group represents the Bulger family – the family of the late James “Whitey” Bulger, infamous mobster, killer, and FBI informant.
RST’s partnership with Bohai began shortly after then-Vice President Joe Biden took Hunter along on a visit to China.
Along with the younger Biden, Archer worked with Burisma to give the company a foothold in the US energy sector. The two also had connections to Russian oligarchs, including Yelena Baturina, a billionaire businesswoman and former first lady of Moscow. Allegedly, Baturina made multiple payments to Rosemont Seneca in 2014 and 2015. According to a 2020 New York Post report, Hunter Biden received a $3.5 million wire transfer from Baturina in early 2014.
Joe and Hunter Biden (Photo by Bruce Bennett/Getty Images)
Communications gleaned from Hunter’s infamous laptop were the breadcrumbs that led Republican investigators to an alleged web of financial payments made to multiple shell companies set up by or on behalf of Biden family members from various overseas entities.
Information provided to the FBI by a credible confidential human source brought the Biden bribery operation into focus. The only thing congressional investigators do not seem to have come up with yet is documented evidence that any of those mysterious payments to the Bidens ended up in the personal account of the “big guy,” who, according to the FBI’s trusted source, is Joe Biden himself. One could be forgiven for pondering the likelihood that multiple members of the Biden family financially benefited from the Biden name but Joe himself never saw a single cent.
Archer certainly might be able to confirm what Republicans believe and what Joe Biden has always denied: that the former vice president had knowledge of or was involved in Hunter’s shady investment deals with the Chinese, the Ukrainians, and other foreign nationals.
One way or another, Archer’s testimony will be highly anticipated. He is likely to be asked about what the FBI source has alleged: that Joe and Hunter Biden were bribed to make an investigation into Burisma go away, which then-Vice President Joe Biden did – and later bragged about. If Archer can and does corroborate that allegation, he might become known as the man who ended the Biden presidency.
