America's Talking - Testimony Contradicts Biden’s Claims He Was Not Involved in Son’s Overseas Dealings

Episode Date: August 5, 2023

The House Oversight Committee released a transcript Thursday of its meeting with Devon Archer, a long-time Hunter Biden associate who alleges President Joe Biden joined phone conversations with Hunter’s business associates several times. The Archer testimony made headlines earlier this week, and now the transcript gives more details into what new evidence the committee has in its investigation. Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/america-in-focus/support Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Greetings and welcome to America in Focus, powered by the Center Square. I am Dan McAulb, executive editor of the Center Square Newswire service. Joining me today, as he does every week, is the Center Square's Washington, D.C. Bureau Chief Casey, Casey, how are things? Casey? Things are good, Dan. Dan, did you wake up this morning just giddy knowing you'd be doing this podcast with me? Always, Casey. That's my Friday morning. Traditionally, giddiness is what I feel.

Just wake up giggling. That's great. Euphoria. Because I get to spend a few extra minutes with you, yes. Thank you. Well, that's what I expected. Dream on, Casey. We are recording this on Friday, August 4th.

Casey, another witness testified behind closed doors this week in the investigation into the Biden family business and its dealings with foreign entities in China, Ukraine, and elsewhere. This latest witness was a longtime associate of the president's son. Hunter Biden, excuse me, bring us up to speed on the developments. Yeah, this has become a weird thing, Dan. I mean, I'm used to covering a lot, trying to do more investigations, maybe writing up some grant funding gone awry or digging into a proposed regulation

and how it's going to impact Americans. But for some reason, there's so much news on the presidential crime beat lately that I'm pretty much just writing back and forth about what Hunter Biden and, Donald Trump and President Trump are accused of. And, you know, I won't say who's, you know, not for me to say who's innocent or guilty, but it's just a weird political moment we're in where both leading candidates are dealing with these questions. And as you said, there was some pretty significant bombshell testimony earlier this week from Devin Archer. He went to school with Hunter Biden. He did business with him for about 10 years. They're friends. You know, there's text message screenshots of them talking back and forth. This is a guy who, who knew Hunter Biden well and who is actually, who says he was really in the beginning of this business and formulating it that Hunter created where it's sort of allegedly an international consulting private equity business where they would create these shell companies that they could receive money from foreign actors. And according to recent IRS whistleblowers, they received

at least $17 million from Ukrainian, Chinese, and Romanian companies. even when Hunter's father, Joe Biden, was vice president at the time. Now, what came out this week that was really interesting is some more color, more firsthand account of what it looked like for Hunter Biden to do business. And according to Devin Archer, Hunter Biden's business associate, who it's worth pointing out is facing his own prison time for fraud charges. We don't have to get into all that, but I think it is worth pointing out. But he said that basically Hunter would use the Biden family quote unquote brand to and monetize it overseas.

And there's multiple times where Hunter would be on the phone with then Vice President Biden and put him on speakerphone in this room full of Hunter Biden's business associates where he's trying to make deals. He's trying to get money. And it was basically a power move when you can call the vice president, put him on speaker phone. And Devin Archer says that Hunter said that Hunter Biden, did this multiple times and that it seemed to him that then, you know, Vice President Joe Biden, of course, now President Joe Biden knew that there was other people listening. It wasn't some secret, like Hunter Biden was tricking him. He said that, you know, the president knew what was going on. So this really contradicts a lot of what President Biden has said in the past where he basically

is like, I don't have any idea what's going on with this. I had no role in it. He's kind of dismissed and reporters ask him about it. He laughs it off and says, oh, where's the money? You know, if I got all this money, where is it? So this, this Archer, this Devin Archer testimony has really ramped up and put more color to these, these ongoing allegations. So before I move forward with this, I want to let listeners know that we, we did a completely separate episode of American focused this week on the former President Trump's latest legal drama, latest indictment. So please check that out in addition to this episode. So it's really congressional Republicans, Casey, that are pushing this investigation forward into the Biden family overseas business dealings, whether there were any crimes committed, whether the money that they allegedly received, that these IRS whistleblowers said they received more than $17 million, as you said, were related to bribery.

They got the payments in exchange for the former vice, current president, at the time, vice president. President Biden's influence over these international business affairs. We have no idea. The Department of Justice has brought charges against Hunter Biden. We detailed this last week when the plea deal that DOJ got with Hunter Biden unraveled in the middle of what was expected to be Hunter Biden's guilty plea. He instead pleaded not guilty. So we know the Department of Justice has been investigating this, but we don't know how hard they're pushing on this, this international bribery allegation. Is this really going to continue to be, you know, in the hands of House Republicans who are driving a congressional investigation forward? What's next, I guess, is what I'm asking.

Yeah, I mean, you're right that House Republicans have really kept the pressure on the Department of Justice to ramp up this investigation and dig more into it. And they brought, they've just brought a lot of public pressure, a lot of political pressure, a lot of media pressure, because you know, this Devon Archer testimony is really important, but I really felt that that IRS whistleblower testimony was even more significant because the IRS whistleblowers straight up said that the Department of Justice interfered in their investigation on behalf of Hunter Biden. Right. And did things that helped Hunter Biden and not get, you know, prosecute as much like wait on crimes, wait to prosecute things so long that basically they would no longer be relevant or statute of limitations, that kind of thing. or just kind of take a softer approach on everything. And so these Hunter Biden's plea deal did fall apart in court.

So you ask what's next? What's next is I think Hunter Biden's team is going to try to get another plea deal because I think he does want to plea. He doesn't, you know, want to go to trial. And so they're going to see if they're going to able to get that. Meanwhile, House Republicans are going to keep trying to release and keep the pressure on the Department of Justice to actually go after Hunter on his foreign agent registration act stuff.

So he was doing all this stuff overseas, but you have to, certain things you do when it comes to lobbying and overseas stuff, you have to register with the federal government. You can't just, for instance, Dan, if you decided one day you were going to make money lobbying for Saudi Arabia to Congress. Like you can't just do that. You have to register. You have to go through a process. And Hunter, by you don't do that. Well, allegedly it seems that he, you know, the question is, was he actually lobbying? Did he go through the process?

but if he did lobby and he wasn't going through the right process, then he could have a lot of legal issues, yes. And so that is one of the most clear charges now. Bribery is the more big, scary word. It's a little hard to prove, and that one involves President Biden, but Republicans want that one too. So, you know, I don't know why it's taking so long to get all this 100 Biden charges in order, but they're clearly not done with this investigation. I mean, there's so much more. How is it that, you know, this many years into it, we're just finding out some.

of these facts. So I think there's a lot more here, but the Republican is going to keep the pressure up. Hunter Biden's going to try to take a plea deal early to get himself some immunity from future charges. But I don't know. I don't think that's going to work. I think this is going to play out and it seems like it's going to play out slowly. And of course, all of this drama is unfolding about 15 months away from the next presidential election. President Biden is running for re-election, at least as of now his chief rival, Donald Trump, faces his own. significant legal challenges. So the next, yeah, the next 15 months are really going to be fascinating when you've got these criminal proceedings, these congressional hearings, the Donald

Trump criminal cases against him all unfolding, all unraveling as we get closer to the next presidential election. You're right about that, Dan. Maybe you could provide some insight from your time in prison on what the scenario could be like for Trump or Biden. I never spent a day in prison, Casey. Oh, sorry. I don't know why I thought that, you know. I'm going to definitely have to fact-check your stories, I think, a little bit closer going forward with the fake news you're throwing out here. Right, right.

But we'll wrap us up, Casey. We're just about out of time. What's next? Of course, you're going to continue to cover both the Hunter Biden investigation and the Donald Trump legal drama that's going on. Final thought? Before we close? Just to close, they both have upcoming court dates. Trump and Biden are tied at 43% support.

Trump is way ahead in the Republican primary field. There is a Republican debate in August, but it looks like Trump is going to boycott it. So it looks like status quo politically until something happens with these court cases, and I don't think that will happen until at least next year. Thank you for your insight, Casey. Listeners can keep up with this story and more at the Center Square. com. For Casey Harper, I'm Dan McHaleb.

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