By Steven Nelson
First son Hunter Biden’s former business partner Devon Archer told lawmakers this week that Ukrainian natural gas firm Burisma Holdings brought the political scion onto its board so that “people would be intimidated to mess with them … legally.”
According to a transcript of a four-hour deposition released Thursday by the House Oversight Committee, Archer also revealed that then-Vice President Joe Biden met twice with his son’s shady post-Soviet business partners at DC’s Café Milano, not once as previously reported.
These and other revelations blow new holes in President Biden’s claim that he never discussed business with his now-53-year-old son — as House Republicans move closer to launching an impeachment inquiry.
The transcript also confirms that Archer extensively discussed the value Hunter brought to Burisma as part of the Biden family “brand.”
Under questioning from Democratic lawyers, Archer mused that “I think Burisma would have gone out of business if it didn’t have the brand attached to it.”
“I think that’s why it was able to survive as long as it did,” he added under interrogation from Rep. Dan Goldman (D-NY).
“Well, I don’t understand. How does that have an impact?” Goldman asked.
“Well, the capabilities to navigate DC that they were able to, you know, basically be in the news cycle. And I think that preserved them from a, you know, from a longevity standpoint,” Archer added.
“But how would that work?” the Democrat pressed.
“Because people would be intimidated to mess with them,” responded Archer, clarifying “legally” when Goldman asked “in what way” they would be intimidated.
Archer also told the House Oversight Committee that most of the $3.5 million wired in February 2014 by former first lady of Moscow Yelena Baturina — who attended one of those dinners with then-VP Biden and his son — was in turn transferred to a firm co-owned by Archer and Hunter Biden after its initial receipt by an entity that Biden defenders had insisted was solely controlled by Archer.
The witness also revealed that Joe Biden, again while vice president, “had coffee” with Jonathan Li, the incoming CEO of Chinese state-backed investment fund BHR Partners — rather than a mere handshake greeting in Beijing in 2013, as initially reported — and that Hunter, who held a 10% stake in BHR until at least 2021, later put his dad on speakerphone with Li as well.
Only one of the oligarch gatherings at Café Milano, an upscale restaurant west of the White House in Georgetown, was previously known.
The April 16, 2015, sit-down formed the basis of The Post’s initial October 2020 report that documents retrieved from Hunter’s abandoned laptop implicated his father in influence-peddling.’
The Biden campaign insisted at the time that the dinner was not on Biden’s “official schedules.”
Archer testified that unbeknownst to the public, there were actually two dinners at the same DC restaurant featuring the sitting vice president and collections of his son’s Eastern European patrons, with one dinner held in spring 2014, followed by the better-known April 2015 meal.
“I believe the first one was, like, a birthday dinner, and then the second was — I think we were supposed to talk about the World Food Program. So there was some talk about that,” Archer said during questioning.
The first dinner included, in addition to Joe and Hunter Biden, Baturina, Kazakhstani businessman Kenes Rakishev — who wired $142,300 used on a luxury car for Hunter Biden — and former Kazakhstani Prime Minister Karim Massimov, Archer said, noting that he could not recall whether former Moscow Mayor Yury Luzhkov, who left office in 2010, joined.
“[Joe Biden] entered the room and shook everybody’s hand,” Archer recalled.
“I don’t remember the conversation. I just remember that he was — he came to dinner, and we ate and kind of talked about the world, I guess, and the weather, and then everybody — everybody left,” he said.
“As far as — I know you’re probably going to ask, you know, how much time. I don’t — it wasn’t 5 minutes; it wasn’t 3 hours.”
The second meal featured a different lineup including Burisma executive Vadym Pozharskyi, “Hunter, Joe, myself, Karim Massimov, a Greek Orthodox priest, maybe someone from World Food Program,” as Archer put it.
Although Archer didn’t name Baturina as an attendee, her invitation was discussed among the partners, and a different attendee of the dinner told The Post earlier this year he saw her and Luzhkov at the event.
At the second Café Milano event, “[Joe Biden] had dinner. He had dinner,” Archer recalled.
When quizzed by Goldman, the former associate said that Joe Biden’s role at the second meal was not a brief stop-in, as characterized in 2021 by a Washington Post article.
“The Washington Post reporting was that President Biden only spoke to his longtime friend, Father Alex Karloutsos, a prominent member of the Greek Orthodox Church, at that dinner. Does that coincide with your memory?” Goldman asked.
“No,” Archer replied, saying it was actually “a regular dinner” and “that’s not correct reporting.” (The attendee who spoke to The Post says Joe Biden was present for about 40 minutes and ate a meal with the group before posing for a photo with two of the Kazakhstani guests.)
Baturina and another Russian billionaire with whom Hunter partnered on US real estate shopping, former military contractor Vladimir Yevtushenkov, remain unsanctioned by President Biden, who has imposed stiff sanctions on Moscow’s business elite in response to last year’s Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Hey… Goldman forgot to mention that when doing the propaganda circuit. I wonder why?
The MS. Media must be puzzled that were not supporting Biden and were not kissing his Rings like they did with Obama
Moron Goldman violated the basic rule to not ask questions you don’t want to know the answer to. Note that, according to this transcript, Goldman went right out and, like a good Democrat, lied to the American people. Archer was very clear on what the point of involving idiot Biden on calls and in meetings and it damn sure wasn’t to check up on the weather to see if he should put the top up on the Vett or not. Again, Democrats rely on their followers being dismally stupid.
Let’s find the IRS return where this is declared. We’ve established that Hunter violated FARA regulations. Will he be granted retro-authority going back to 2015 like the Podesta’s (but not Manafort) got?