Hunter Biden’s best friend in business, Devon Archer, told House investigators that Burisma Holdings would have gone out of business if it were not for the so-called Biden brand, which Joe Biden promoted on phone calls with Burisma executives.
In 2014 Archer and Hunter Biden both joined the board of Burisma, a Ukrainian energy company with legal challenges, as it was under investigation for wrongdoing. Burisma paid Hunter Biden $83,000 a month to sit on its board.
Archer testified that in December 2015, co-founder of Burisma Mykola Zlochevsky and Vadym Pozharski, an executive of Burisma, put pressure on Hunter Biden to get help from Washington, DC, regarding the Ukrainian prosecutor, Viktor Shokin, who was investigating Burisma for corruption.
Ukrainian businessman and founder of the Burisma Holdings company, Mykola Zlochevsky. (Pavlo Gonchar/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)
In 2018, Joe Biden bragged about the firing of prosecutor Viktor Shokin during an official visit to Ukraine in 2015. During the visit, he met with former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko in Kiev about Ukraine’s corruption.
Watch — Joe Biden Explains How He Got Ukrainian Prosecutor Who Was Investigating Burisma Fired:
Four months after the meeting, Poroshenko fired Shokin.
An FBI informant alleges Joe and Hunter Biden accepted a $5 million bribe from Zlochevsky.
Archer said that Hunter Biden, along with Zlochevsky and Pozharski, “called D.C.” to speak about the legal situation. “Biden, Zlochevsky, and Pozharski stepped away to take make the call.”
Over 20 times, Hunter Biden placed Joe Biden on speakerphone during business meetings with Archer present, he told House investigators. Archer also testified that Joe Biden was put on the phone to sell “the brand.”
The 20 phone calls also included a dinner in China with Jonathan Li of Bohai Harvest RST (BHR). Hunter Biden and Archer held their interests in the company through a shell company called Rosemont Seneca Thornton.
Republican investigators revealed Yelena Baturina, the billionaire ex-wife of Moscow’s longtime mayor, transferred $3.5 million to Rosemont Seneca Thornton on February 14, 2014.
Archer confirmed then-Vice President Joe Biden in 2014 attended a business dinner with Hunter Biden and business associates at Café Milano in Washington, DC. Baturina also attended the dinner.
The Biden Administration’s sanctions list excludes Russian oligarch Baturina, as Breitbart News reported.
Former Moscow’s Mayor Yuri Luzhkov and his wife, billionaire Yelena Baturina at the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia, on September, 22, 2016. (Mikhail Svetlov/Getty Images)
“Devon Archer’s testimony today confirms Joe Biden lied to the American people when he said he had no knowledge about his son’s business dealings and was not involved,” House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer (R-KY) said in a statement.
“Why did Joe Biden lie to the American people about his family’s business dealings and his involvement? It begs the question what else he is hiding from the American people,” he added.
Follow Wendell Husebø on Twitter @WendellHusebø. He is the author of Politics of Slave Morality.