Republicans Oversell Archer’s Testimony About Hunter and Joe Biden

Congressional testimony by Hunter Biden’s former business partner, Devon Archer, on July 31 led to competing narratives about what Archer said, and how damaging his testimony was to President Joe Biden. The release of a transcript of Archer’s testimony on Aug. 3 undermined some of those narratives.

Archer revealed that on about 20 occasions over a 10-year period, Hunter Biden put his father on speakerphone to exchange pleasantries with Hunter Biden’s foreign business associates, part of what Archer described as the “brand” that Hunter Biden brought to foreign business deals.

But contrary to what some Republicans claimed, Archer said Joe Biden never discussed any business on those calls, and more often than not did not even know to whom he was speaking. Archer said he had no knowledge that Hunter Biden ever influenced his father to change any policies to further his son’s businesses.

Republican Rep. James Comer, chairman of the oversight committee, has accused Joe Biden of taking a bribe from a Ukrainian executive and said after Archer’s testimony that the bribery allegation is “more credible” — though Archer said he did not know anything about such a bribe.

Archer contradicted Republican claims – amplified by then-President Donald Trump during the 2020 presidential campaign –– that the wife of a former Moscow mayor paid Hunter Biden $3.5 million. Archer said that money was mistakenly put in an account once shared by Hunter Biden.

Archer’s testimony also cast some doubt on allegations that then-Vice President Biden forced the ouster of Ukraine’s prosecutor general at the behest of executives of the Ukrainian oil and gas company Burisma, where Hunter Biden was being paid $1 million a year as a board member. Archer testified that the Burisma public relations team in Washington, D.C., told him at the time that the prosecutor was under Burisma’s “control” and that the vice president’s advocating for the prosecutor’s ouster was bad for the company.

Nonetheless, Archer’s testimony did paint a picture of Hunter Biden as a businessman who liked to emphasize the access he had to his father and leave the impression that he could influence his father to troubleshoot on behalf of foreign clients, even when that wasn’t true.

For example, Archer was asked about an April 12, 2014, email Hunter Biden sent to him ahead of an upcoming visit to Ukraine by the elder Biden.

“The announcement of my guy’s upcoming travels should be characterized [to Burisma officials] as part of our advice and thinking — but what he will say and do is out of our hands,” Hunter Biden wrote. “In other words, it could be a really good thing or it could end up creating