Hunter Biden’s one-time friend and business partner Devon Archer finally testified before the House Oversight Committee in a closed-door hearing on Monday. While a full transcript is expected later this week, members of the committee wasted no time sharing highlights.
On Tuesday’s show, Megyn was joined by Peter Schweizer, president of the Government Accountability Institute and host of The Drill Down, to discuss what Archer revealed and what it means for the Biden family.
The Testimony
Archer spent four hours with the House Oversight Committee for a transcribed interview. According to readouts form Republican lawmakers, he shared that Ukrainian natural gas company Burisma Holdings paid Hunter up to $1 million per year to serve on its board because of his family’s “brand.”
Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-KY) said Archer – who served on the Burisma board with Hunter beginning in 2014 – confirmed “the brand” referred to then-Vice President Joe Biden. Additionally, Hunter apparently referred to his dad as “my guy.”
The House Judiciary Committee, which was part of the deposition, posted some “key takeaways” on Twitter:
Archer reportedly told Congress “Burisma would have gone out of business if ‘the brand’ had not been attached to it.” He believes people were intimidated to to interfere with the company because of its ties to the Biden family.
To that point, Archer noted that, in December 2015, Burisma owner Mykola Zlochevsky and executive Vadym Pozharski pressured Hunter to solicit help from Washington, DC, to get then-Uranian prosecutor Viktor Shokin off their backs. Shokin was investigating possible corruption at the energy company.
Archer claims Hunter, Zlochevsky, and Pozharski “called DC” to discuss the matter, raising concerns that the first son violated the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA). President Biden later publicly boasted about getting Shokin fired at a 2018 Council on Foreign Relations meeting. “I said, ‘I’m telling you, you’re not getting the billion dollars,’” Biden recalled at the event. “I looked at them and said: I’m leaving in six hours. If the prosecutor is not fired, you’re not getting the money. Well, son of a bitch. He got fired.”
The phone call was apparently not an isolated incident. According to Archer, Hunter put the then-vice president on speakerphone more than 20 times during business meetings to sell “the brand.” Those calls included Ukrainian and Chinese business prospects, he noted.
The Fallout
Democrats like Congressman Dan Goldman of New York have been trying to spin Archer’s testimony as nothing new, but Schweizer said that, based on what we have learned so far, there is plenty to take away from the closed door meeting.
First, there is whether or not President Biden has been telling the truth about his involvement in his son’s business dealings. “I think it is an important development because it shows the lie that Joe Biden has said consistently, that he never met with, never discussed, never had any conversations with any of his business partners,” Schweizer noted.
And then there is the potential quid pro quo as it relates to the firing of Shokin. “When that video was first released and people were talking about the quid pro quo, I was kind of skeptical, but this new piece from Devon Archer, I think, conclusively shows that there’s a connection between the two,” he said. “Hunter Biden was not hired by Burisma because he had background in energy or Ukrainian policy or regulatory affairs. He was hired because of who his father was.”
Schweizer said Hunter acknowledged so much in a 2019 interview with ABC News. “Lo and behold, who’s the one that later brags about firing the prosecutor that Hunter’s employer wants fired? His father, the vice president of the United States,” he said. “I don’t think it gets more damning than that.”
Megyn agreed. “That’s the only thing that makes any sense,” she explained. “Neither Devon Archer nor Hunter had any expertise in oil, gas, or energy whatsoever; they got placed in that Burisma board when Joe Biden was the sitting vice president; they have a meeting at which Hunter makes clear that he has daily access to his father, to the sitting vice president; and they get $83,000 a month from this company.”
While the media and the left and even President Biden himself is trying to, in Megyn’s words, “lay the foundation” that there is nothing to see here because he speaks to his children and grandchildren every day, she isn’t buying it. “I call my mom all the time, but I don’t call her in the middle of my show; I don’t call her in the middle of my business negotiations with Sirius XM – that wouldn’t be appropriate,” she concluded. “There’s only one reason [Hunter] would be calling him in the middle of a business meeting and that’s to show the door is open, I do have access.”
You can check out Megyn’s full conversation with Schweizer by tuning in to episode 599 on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you like to listen. And don’t forget that you can catch The Megyn Kelly Show live on SiriusXM’s Triumph (channel 111) weekdays from 12pm to 2pm ET.