President Joe Biden abused his vice presidential authority by joining speakerphone calls with his son’s business associates, former Biden business associate Devon Archer confirmed to Tucker Carlson in an interview on Wednesday.
In an attempt to build what Archer called “the Biden brand” and sell access to the then-vice president, Hunter Biden put his dad on speakerphone two dozen times in the presence of his various financial partners.
Democrat Rep. Dan Goldman claimed mere minutes after House GOP investigators heard Archer’s testimony on Tuesday that Joe simply phoned into his son’s business meetings to discuss the “weather.” This proved to be a strong pivot from Democrats’ insistence that Joe, as he repeated in 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, and 2023, had nothing to do with Hunter’s foreign business dealings. Goldman’s claims were also strongly contradicted by Archer’s confirmation that Joe’s phone calls did influence the people in Hunter’s meetings.
“To be completely clear on the calls, I don’t know if it was an orchestrated call or not. It certainly was powerful, though, because if you’re sitting with a foreign business person and you hear the vice president’s voice, that’s prized enough. That’s pretty impactful stuff for anyone,” Archer confessed.
At the time, Archer appreciated the leg up he and Hunter’s company had because of its close relationship with the VP. But he later admitted that “In the rearview, it’s an abuse of soft power.”
“The power to have that access in that conversation, and it’s not in a scheduled conference call, and it’s a part of your family, that’s like the pinnacle of power in DC,” Archer said.
Phone calls weren’t the only means Joe used to contact Biden family associates. In addition to meeting Archer at least “20 times,” Joe penned the businessman a letter thanking him for partnering with Hunter.
“He was thanking me and thanking Hunter, I think, at the end of the day for bringing this idea of this government regulatory, strategic advisory business into the private equity world,” Archer said. “I think he was excited about the prospects for Hunter, and he was just thanking me; I think it was a nice gesture.”
“It was a nice gesture, for sure. Very polite,” Carlson said. “It gets a 10 on the etiquette scale. But he’s the vice president United States, and he’s talking about foreign business deals with you and thanking you for that.”
Archer admitted that “at the time, I think I hit the jackpot in finding the regulatory environment or company that can navigate right to the top” but eventually recognized the problems with the arrangement.
“Being a little bit too close to the sun ends up burning you,” Archer continued.
According to Archer, Hunter entered the world of influence peddling under the guise of private equity, a “complex business that takes years of training,” and “regulatory issues that you might have at the corporate level.” Hunter may not have personally had experience in this field, but Archer assured Carlson that “he led a team that had a sophisticated understanding of regulation.”
“You’ve got to be an expert in knowing the guy, and he was the guy that was the expert in knowing the guy,” Archer said, noting Hunter’s “brother, his father, some of his father’s siblings” made that list.
Archer admitted that it didn’t matter whether Hunter had experience in the field or not because “the brand of Biden adds a lot of power when your dad’s vice president.”
Carlson explained that Washington D.C., where Hunter often operated, is not known as a “money town” but a “selling access” city.
“That’s what it looked like to me,” Archer agreed. “I think that’s one of the core misconceptions. I mean, it seems like understanding a regulatory environment means selling access at the end of the day. That’s how I interpreted it. I think that’s how most people in Wall Street, whether they admit it or not, interpreted it.”
Archer said Hunter’s vast interconnectedness with government officials did benefit their company significantly.
“There are very like tactical elements that are regulatory and compliance and governance that you have to go through, and you’ve got to know the guy that worked at the old agency that now has a lobbying firm that can go back to the agency and get things put to the front of the line,” Archer explained.
“At the end of the day, he had the best advantage to do that because of where he was,” Archer added.
Hutner’s wheeling and dealing under the Biden brand, Archer admitted, was a sweet deal but deserved scrutiny.
“There are people that maybe were sons or relatives or brother-in-law’s of other high-ranking officials, but I think what we ran into and with what Hunter ran into was almost like an Icarus issue,” Archer explained. “He got a little, it was too close to the sun. It was too good to be true. And the connections were too close and the scrutiny too much. And it ended up destroying, left a wake of a lot of destruction and business over a number of years.”
Carlson said he understands why a business guy like Archer would “use every advantage” to advance financial goals but explained that the Bidens “are not business guys.”
“This is the vice president United States. He’s not allowed to be working on businesses with foreign governments while he’s vice president, I don’t think,” Carlson concluded.
“Not that I know of,” Archer replied.
