by John Solomon
Devon Archer delivered bombshell testimony to Congress on Monday, telling lawmakers that Burisma Holdings pressured Hunter Biden in December 2015 to deal with a Ukrainian prosecutor who was investigating the firm for corruption shortly before the then-vice president took steps to force the prosecutor’s firing, a source directly familiar with the transcribed interview told Just the News.
Archer told the House Oversight and Accountability Committee that Hunter Biden was added to Burisma’s board in 2014 because his family’s “brand” brought value at a time when the firm was facing corruption allegations from the United States, Great Britain and Ukraine’s own prosecutor general office, the source said, speaking on condition of anonymity because the interview was still ongoing Monday afternoon.
“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 brought the most value to ‘the brand,'” the source said. “Archer also stated that Burisma would have gone under if not for ‘the brand.”
Archer also directly contradicted Joe Biden’s long held claims he never met with Hunter Biden’s foreign business associates, telling the committee America’s current president got on speakerphone more than 20 times with his son’s business clients.
Archer testified that Joe Biden did not engage in business specific on such calls, instead he “was put on the phone to sell ‘the brand,'” the source said.
The former business partner at the Rosemont Seneca firm, who was convicted in 2018 in a tribal bond fraud scheme, also told lawmakers that Hunter Biden was pressured in late 2015 to help deal with Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin’s corruption investigation as Joe Biden was preparing to travel to Ukraine.
“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,” the source explained, recounting Archer’s testimony. “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 take make the call.”
A few days after that meeting, Joe Biden visited Ukraine as vice president and began an effort to force Ukraine’s president to fire Shokin, eventually threatening to withhold $1 billion in U.S. loan guarantees if the termination did not happen. Biden’s defenders have long maintained the firing was not related to Burisma and was a result of U.S. policy because the Obama administration felt Shokin was corrupt.
Shokin has denied being corrupt and claims his firing was a result of his probe of Burisma.
Archer also testified that in spring of 2014, then-Vice President Biden attended a business dinner with his son, Hunter, and his business associates at Café Milano in Washington, D.C., where the Russian oligarch Elena Baturina attended, the source said.
Following Archer’s testimony, New York Democratic Rep. Dan Goldman (pictured above) told reporters that Archer recalled Hunter speaking with his father “every day” on the phone.
“He approximated that about 20 times over the course of his 10-year business relationship that he had with Hunter Biden, which would be about twice a year, that Hunter would put his father on speakerphone with whomever was at dinner — and there was no indication that he had any idea who was at dinner with them,” according to Goldman’s recount of Archer’s testimony.
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John Solomon is an award-winning investigative journalist, author and digital media entrepreneur who serves as Chief Executive Officer and Editor in Chief of Just the News. Before founding Just the News, Solomon played key reporting and executive roles at some of America’s most important journalism institutions, such as The Associated Press, The Washington Post, The Washington Times, Newsweek, The Daily Beast and The Hill.
Image “Rep Dan Goldman” by C-Span.org.
