The closed-door testimony by Devon Archer, Hunter’s closest ally and partner, confirmed some of what we knew.
As the House Oversight Committee notes, Devon Archer allegedly stated that “when Joe Biden was Vice President of the United States, he joined Hunter Biden’s dinners with his foreign business associates in person or by speakerphone over 20 times.”
“Devon Archer testified that the value of adding Hunter Biden to Burisma’s board was ‘the brand’ and confirmed that then-Vice President Joe Biden was “the brand” and that the 20 phone calls were to sell ‘the brand.’”
In fact, Devon Archer admitted that “Burisma would have gone out of business if ‘the brand’ had not been attached to it.” Because of the Bidens’ involvement, people would have been intimidated to mess with Burisma legally.
The specifics are a bit less killer.
In 2014, then-VP Biden attended a business dinner with Hunter & his associates at Café Milano in D.C. Elena Baturina, a Russian oligarch who is the widow of the former mayor of Moscow, was an attendee. Notably, the Biden Admin’s public sanctions do not contain Baturina.
oe Biden was dialed into a dinner in Paris with a French energy company and in China with Jonathan Li, the CEO of BHR. Then-VP Biden also had coffee with Li in Beijing and even wrote a letter of recommendation for college for Li’s daughter.
In December 2015, Mykola Zlochevsky, the owner of Burisma, and Vadym Pozharski, an executive of Burisma, placed constant pressure on Hunter Biden to get help from D.C. regarding the Ukrainian prosecutor, Viktor Shokin. Shokin was investigating Burisma for corruption.
Hunter Biden, along with Zlochevsky and Pozharski, “called D.C.” to discuss the matter. Biden, Zlochevsky, and Pozharski stepped away to make the call. This raises concerns that Hunter Biden was in violation of the Foreign Agents Registration Act.
From the sound of things, Archer wasn’t in on that call or claims not to be. It’s possible, based on the FBI confidential informant form that Zlochevsky has a copy of that recording, but Archer apparently isn’t specifying whom they called. While the answer is fairly obvious, it does fall short of the truly damning link between Hunter’s work for Burisma and Joe Biden forcing the firing of Shokin.
The evidence thus far makes it clear that this is what Hunter Biden was hired for, and Joe Biden admitted forcing the firing of Shokin by threatening to withhold foreign aid, but Devon Archer’s interview doesn’t appear to have provided a perfect link even while making it clear that Hunter’s business was selling his father. And that Joe Biden appeared quite happy to take part in this line of work on a large scale.