Devon Archer, a former business associate of Hunter Biden, told the House Oversight Committee that the Biden family “brand” helped to preserve Ukrainian energy company Burisma by making people “intimidated to mess with them.”
Mr. Archer served as a Burisma board member alongside the son of then-Vice President Joe Biden, beginning in 2014.
While Mr. Hunter Biden was initially brought on to serve in the capacity of a legal counsel, Mr. Archer said, higher-ups at Burisma “had a different design,” ultimately determining that Mr. Biden should be moved to a role on the board of the company. During his time with the company, Mr. Hunter Biden made roughly $83,000 per month, or about $1 million per year, according to the transcript.
During questioning, Mr. Archer was asked what value Mr. Hunter Biden, trained as a lawyer, brought to the board of the foreign energy firm.
“The value that Hunter Biden brought to it was having—the theoretical was corporate governance, but obviously, given the brand, that was a large part of the value,” Mr. Archer said. “I don’t think it was the sole value, but I do think that was a key component of the value.”
“By ‘brand’ you mean the Biden family, correct?” an investigator asked.
The ‘Brand’ Was Joe Biden
After further questioning, Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.) interjected, “When you say ‘Biden family’ ... you aren’t talking about Dr. Jill [Biden] or anybody else. You’re talking about Joe Biden. Is that fair to say?”Mr. Archer replied, “Yeah, that’s fair to say.”
In further questioning, an investigator clarified that “his value that he was adding was, in part ... his family.”
“Uh-huh,” Mr. Archer replied.
Later, he was asked whether then-Vice President Biden had any involvement with the company.
“No—not direct, no,” Mr. Archer said.
But the “brand” was nevertheless indispensable to the company’s survival, he said.
“My only thought is that I think Burisma would have gone out of business if it didn’t have the brand attached to it,” Mr. Archer said.
Questioned further on this claim by Rep. Dan Goldman (D-N.Y.), Mr. Archer explained that Burisma’s relationship with the Bidens discouraged legal action against the company that may have otherwise advanced.
“[Burisma] was able to survive for as long as it did ... just because of the brand,” Mr. Archer said.
Mr. Goldman said, “I don’t understand. How does that have an impact?”
Mr. Archer replied, “Well, the capabilities to navigate D.C. that they were able to, you know, basically be in the news cycle. And I think that preserved them from a ... longevity standpoint.”
Mr. Goldman asked, “But how would that work?”
Biden’s Name Carried Weight
While the comments fall short of implicating the president in his son’s business dealings, they reveal that the Biden family name itself was perceived to carry substantial power.During an interview with Tucker Carlson, Mr. Archer said that Mr. Hunter Biden’s connections, in part thanks to his father’s position, were “absolutely” a key offering that the younger Biden brought to the table and that it would be hard for him to know whether Mr. Hunter Biden would have achieved the same success without his father’s position.
“Obviously, the brand of Biden adds a lot of power when your dad’s the vice president,” Mr. Archer told Mr. Carlson.
He later said, “You gotta be an expert in knowing the guy, and he was an expert in knowing the guy.”
Later, Mr. Carlson said, “There’s some question on if Hunter Biden was trading on his father’s name. If you live in Washington, that’s the whole city there—”
Mr. Archer interjected, “Right. ... At the end of the day, you get the best advantage to do that, because of where he was we thought that when we went into business, it was a great opportunity for us.”
Hunter Biden Seeking Credit
Asked whether Mr. Hunter Biden had ever spoken about how “using” the role of his father as vice president “would add value in the eyes of Burisma officials,” Mr. Archer said he had.“He would not be so overt,” he said. “And I think that’s, you know, I think that’s another obvious point, that he would not say, OK ... we’re going to use my dad for this.
“But I think he would ... given the brand, I think he would look ... to get the leverage from it.”
In one case reported by Mr. Archer to the Oversight panel, Mr. Hunter Biden referred to his father, then serving as vice president, as “my guy” in an effort to increase his credibility and apparent political value to others on the board.
In an April 2014 email, he wrote, “The announcement of my guy’s upcoming travels should be characterized as part of our advice and thinking.”
Republicans queried the use of the term, which they described as an odd way to refer to one’s father.
In response, Mr. Archer offered speculation that the comments were part of an effort by Mr. Hunter Biden to “get credit” for Mr. Joe Biden’s 2014 trip to Ukraine.
“He was getting paid a lot of money, and I think, you know, he wanted to show value,” Mr. Archer said.
An investigator asked, “And was part of that value him bringing his dad to the Ukraine?”
Mr. Archer replied, “I think in here it’s clear that he’s not bringing his dad, but he’s saying, you know, ‘I’m going to get credit for it.’”
‘Abuse of Power’
In comments to the Oversight panel and during the interview with Mr. Carlson, Mr. Archer also suggested that Mr. Hunter Biden’s reliance on his father’s image constituted an “abuse of soft power.”In particular, Mr. Archer told the panel that Mr. Hunter Biden put his father on the phone during calls with business associates. Although these never touched on business, according to Mr. Archer, the vice president’s mere presence conveyed more than the words spoken.
Mr. Goldman downplayed these claims after the testimony in comments to reporters, dismissing the substance of the conversations as “casual conversation, niceties, the weather, what’s going on.”
Mr. Archer gave a different appraisal during his appearance on Mr. Carlson’s program, saying the effects of the phone calls were “powerful” and likely assisted Mr. Hunter Biden’s business interests.
“I don’t know if it was an orchestrated call-in or not,” Mr. Archer said. “It certainly was powerful though, because if you’re sitting with a foreign business person and you hear the vice president’s voice, that’s prize enough.”
“A lot of it’s about opening doors, you know, globally in D.C.,” Mr. Archer told the Oversight panel, saying it “sent the right signals.”
Mr. Carlson pressed further on the issue during his interview with Mr. Archer.
“I’ve got a lot of kids, I’m very close to them—never called them during a business meeting,“ Mr. Carlson said. ”You’ve got a lot of kids, do you call them during business meetings?”
Mr. Archer smiled at the question, but initially seemed hesitant to respond.
“You understand D.C., right?“ he said. ”The power to have that access and that conversation and it’s not in a scheduled conference call, that’s really the pinnacle of power in D.C.”
“In the rearview, it was an abuse of soft power.”
