President Donald Trump on March 25 signed a pardon for Devon Archer, a onetime business partner of former President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden.
“Many people have asked me to do this. I think he was treated very unfairly,” Trump said at the White House in Washington. “And I looked at the records, studied the records, and he was a victim of a crime, as far as I’m concerned. So we’re going to undo that.”
Matthew L. Schwartz, chairman of Boies Schiller Flexner LLP and a lawyer for Archer, told The Epoch Times in an email: “Today’s pardon corrects a serious injustice, and finally allows an innocent man to be free of the threat of misguided prosecution. Mr. Archer is deeply appreciative of the President.”
Archer was involved in several companies with Hunter Biden before being charged in a fraud scheme that targeted Native Americans and pension funds. He was convicted in 2018.
The conviction was thrown out after a federal judge found that Archer did not intend to commit fraud, but a federal appeals court overturned the dismissal. The court said evidence in the case, including emails, supported the jury’s conviction.
Hunter Biden was not charged in the case. He was later convicted of federal gun crimes and pleaded guilty to tax evasion. Joe Biden, who was president from 2021 to 2025, pardoned his son before leaving office.
Archer “was prosecuted relating to a fraud investigation, but notably, the tone and tenor of that prosecution changed dramatically after he began to cooperate with congressional investigators and serve as a witness against Hunter, [Joe] Biden, and the Biden family,” Will Scharf, the White House staff secretary, told Trump on Tuesday. “We believe that was an injustice, and therefore we’re asking you to pardon him.”
That’s when Trump took the pardon, said many people had asked him to pardon Archer, and signed the pardon.
Archer in 2023 testified to members of the U.S. House of Representatives as they investigated Joe Biden, his son, and other family members for business deals conducted while and after Biden was vice president.
“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,” Archer said at the time. “I don’t think it was the sole value, but I do think that was a key component of the value.”
Archer later said he was referring to the brand of the Biden family. “I think Burisma would have gone out of business if it didn’t have the brand attached to it,” he said.
