‘Biden Brand’ Was Key to Hunter Biden’s Influence-Peddling Enterprises

While Democrats and the mainstream media painted the July 31 congressional testimony of Devon Archer, a former business partner of President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter, as further evidence the president was not involved in his son’s business dealings, many Americans who heard the Archer interview believe it connected even more dots between Joe Biden and his son’s questionable business practices.

“The biggest bombshell that we have from Devon Archer’s testimony,” said Eric Eggers on “Washington Watch” August 3, was “that Hunter Biden was able to, in the presence of his customers, put his father, Vice President Joe Biden, on the phone upwards of 20 times.”

Barack Obama’s second-in-command was the product in this business model that opened doors and made money for his son’s far-reaching business enterprises, Eggers explained. Eggers is the vice president of research for the Government Accountability Institute, a non-partisan organization based in Tallahassee, Fla., that investigates governmental malfeasance and corruption.

An August 4 New York Times story said Archer’s testimony failed to support the “bribery allegations” Republicans have pushed and rejected the “idea that the elder Mr. Biden had any material involvement in his son’s business dealings.” A similar article in the Washington Post three days earlier stated the Republican “bombshell” — the interview of Archer — failed to detonate, providing no connection between then-Vice President Biden and his son’s Ukrainian business dealings.

Despite the attempts to downplay Archer’s statements, Eggers noted the testimony of Hunter Biden’s former business partner before the U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Accountability provided even more proof that not only was the elder Biden aware of his son’s business dealings, he was directly involved. Egger pointed out that Archer referred to the Biden name as their business’s “brand” that was marketed by Hunter Biden.

In response to a question posed by Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.) during the testimony, Archer said Joe Biden was the asset that was being sold. “That’s fair to say. Obviously, that brought the most value to the brand,” he said in the House committee hearing.

Eggers explained that this influence peddling was not an activity just Hunter Biden was engaged in: “This is unique to the Bidens. We’ve reported that the Government Accountability Institute, in addition to the deal that Hunter Biden had with Burisma, in addition to the deal that he and Devin Archer had with the Chinese government, the Biden brothers have acquired and accumulated over $31 million in other business deals with entities that are connected to the Chinese military and, specifically, the Chinese espionage ring.”

“This was precisely the service Hunter Biden brought to the table,” responded guest host and former Congressman Jody Hice.. Given his lack of qualifications for a position on the board of a Ukrainian energy company, Hunter had something no one else had — access to the executive branch of the U.S. government via his father, Hice continued.

Devin Archer and Hunter Biden snagged board seats with Burisma Holdings, Eggers pointed out, noting Biden was paid $1 million a year to sit on the company’s board of directors. “There’s been a lot of questions about why Hunter Biden would be selected and then why his business associate, Devin Archer, would be selected to be placed on the board of this seemingly random Third World natural gas company,” he continued.

Eggers said the appointment of the two men, who had no experience in that industry, would be random unless you look at the larger perspective. He noted that soon after Barack Obama won his second term as president, Joe Biden took Hunter with him on a trip to China. “Shortly after that visit, Hunter Biden was able to secure in his new company that he founded with Devin Archer what would become a $1.5 billion private equity deal with the Chinese government,” Egger explained, noting it was the first of its kind for Communist China.

This became the business model that the Bidens began pursuing, he said. “They would find in sort of these less well known, less public, less transparent corners of the world business arrangements with people who were essentially trying to launder their reputation and curry favor with people at the highest levels of the United States government. And so that’s exactly what the Burisma deal was,” Eggers continued.

He traced Hunter Biden’s use of the brand to gain access back to his July 2006 appointment to the Amtrak Board of Directors while George W. Bush was in the White House. At the time, Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.), said the younger Biden was a good fit for the board because “Hunter Biden has spent a lot of time on Amtrak trains.”

Noting an ongoing pattern, Eggers told Hice, “Hunter Biden is not a guy who is used to earning his way to the table.”

“This is a guy whose brand and, specifically, his last name is what gets him into places like this.” Eggers added.

In his testimony, Archer said there were “objectives that Burisma was trying to accomplish” that could be better accomplished by “opening doors … globally in D.C.”

Biden’s former business partner went so far as to suggest it was the “brand” that kept the energy company operating. “I think Burisma would have gone out of business if it didn’t have the brand attached to it.” Archer emphasized that was just his “honest opinion” and that he had no firm basis for the belief, according to his remarks captured in the over 140-page transcript of the July 31 interview. 

Eggers said the natural gas firm, Burisma Holdings, was “essentially a corrupt entity” and that a Ukrainian prosecutor was closely scrutinizing it. “We know that Devon Archer has said that they were asked by Burisma executives to get the prosecutor who was threatening to put them out of business fired,” Eggers continued, suggesting a call was made to Washington, D.C. in an attempt to get the pressure off the company. In March 2016, then-Vice President Biden told the Ukrainian president that unless this particular prosecutor was fired, the U.S. would hold up $1 billion in U.S. loan guarantees. Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko complied with the demand.

All 20 of the phone calls that Archer referenced in his testimony that included Joe Biden happened while Biden was vice president, including one during a dinner in Paris that Hunter had with representatives from a French energy company and another in China with the head of a Chinese private-equity firm. Those who dispute the notion that the senior Biden was an asset in Hunter’s business dealings assert the conversations were simply “small talk,” yet Eggers suggested it was less about the conversation itself and more about who the callers were conversing with.

“Whether the nature of the conversation was casual or not,” Eggers explained, “the point is it was impactful and it got done what needed to get done with the business people they were trying to curry favor with and ultimately trying to get them to pay them.”

He continued, those who say the conversation was just “casual niceties, like the kind of talk you might hear on the golf course about the weather,” miss the point about what else gets done on the golf course — “a lot of business!”

“People decide to do business with people because they’re comfortable with them and they’re impressed by the network,” Eggers said. That’s essentially what the Bidens were selling. They’re selling their network.”

At the end of the day, “Devin Archer’s testimony is devastating for President Biden because it shows that President Biden was absolutely involved in the Biden crime family’s foreign bribery and corruption schemes,” Mike Davis told FRC’s Hice later in the August 3 program. The president’s involvement in his son’s business dealings and his repeated statements that he never talked to his son about these matters is “impeachable conduct,” said Davis, who is the founder of the Article 3 Project, which advocates for constitutionalist judges and an independent judiciary.