DOJ tries to jail key Hunter Biden witness Devon Archer on eve of congressional testimony
The Justice Department is pushing for Devon Archer to report to prison — just days ahead of the former Hunter Biden business partner’s hotly anticipated congressional testimony, according to new court documents.
Manhattan federal prosecutors on Saturday filed a letter requesting a judge set a date for Archer to start his one-year sentence in a fraud case unrelated to the first son’s various scandals.
The request came after the Second Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed Archer’s 2018 conviction last Tuesday on two felony charges for his role in a conspiracy to defraud a Native American tribe.
Archer — who is set to deliver closed-door testimony to the House Oversight Committee on Monday about Biden — had been challenging the conviction.
His attorney, Matthew Schwartz, said he would be filing a formal response to the request from the US Attorney’s Office by Wednesday — and noted that his client would still testify as planned despite allegations the DOJ letter was an intimidation tactic.
“We are aware of speculation that the Department of Justice’s weekend request to have Mr. Archer report to prison is an attempt by the Biden administration to intimidate him in advance of his meeting with the House Oversight Committee,” Schwartz said in a statement, per Politico.
“To be clear, Mr. Archer does not agree with that speculation,” Schwartz added. “In any case, Mr. Archer will do what he has planned to do all along, which is to show up on Monday and to honestly answer the questions that are put to him by the Congressional investigators.”
Schwartz has argued it was “premature” to pick a jail date as the 58-year-old mulls potential appeal options.
Back in 2009, Archer, Biden, and Christopher Heinz co-founded investment and advisory firm Rosemont Seneca Partners, which the first son used as a vehicle for many of his overseas business endeavors.
Archer is expected to testify that Hunter Biden would dial-in his father, then-Vice President Joe Biden during various meetings with overseas partners, as The Post exclusively reported.
This is a key development in the GOP-led inquiries of the Biden family, because it potentially ties the president to his son’s business affairs.
President Biden has previously said, “I have never spoken to my son about his overseas business dealings.”
The White House now says the president “was never in business with his son,” an apparent shift in verbiage downplayed by press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre.
For months, Biden administration officials have pummeled Republicans over their probe of the first family’s business dealings and have sought to drive home the notion that the president hasn’t been directly implicated.
“Just last week his fellow GOP colleague on the Oversight Committee said this on camera for all to see: ‘I’ve heard over and over that President Biden has not been implicated or proven for any wrongdoing here, and I acknowledge that,’” White House spokesperson Ian Sams tweeted last Tuesday.
Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.), who has been the point-person on the GOP inquiries of the first family, has repeatedly shrugged off the Biden administration’s various defensives, highlighting the questions Biden activity his panel has uncovered so far.
Comer subpoenaed Archer in June and called the timing of the jail request letter “odd.”
“I don’t want to put words in Devon Archer’s mouth,” Comer teased on Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures,” “but I’ll say this: He has an opportunity to come tomorrow to the House Oversight Committee and tell the truth.”
Last week, Hunter Biden’s planned plea agreement with federal prosecutors burned down in flames after a Trump-appointed judge raised constitutionality concerns and found daylight between the two parties.
He then pleaded not guilty to two tax misdemeanors charges, to which he was initially expected to plead guilty.
Attorneys from the two sides are expected to head back to the drawing board to iron out their differences.
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