In a 2019 text message, Hunter Biden told his former best friend and business partner Devon Archer that his legal woes were “the price of being the most powerful group of people in the world.” Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene posted the previously unseen text exchange on Monday during a break in Archer’s long-awaited closed-door deposition in front of the House Oversight Committee.
Archer was convicted of securities fraud in 2018 for allegedly swindling the Oglala Sioux Indian tribe out of $60 million in bonds. He was sentenced to a year and a day in prison in February of 2022, and lost his appeal to have his conviction and sentence tossed last month.
In the 2019 text exchange, Archer asked Hunter why appointees from the Obama/Biden Admin had arrested him.
“Why would they try to ruin my family and destroy my kids and no one from your family’s side step in and at least try to help me,” Archer asked plaintively. “I don’t get it. And I’m depressed.” Archer also told Hunter that their Asian friends were asking the same questions.
“Buddy are you serious?” Hunter replied, before launching into a lofty homily about how “our democracy” makes the people in power vulnerable to prosecutorial overreach. In doing so, Hunter seemed to suggest that the White House and the Department of Justice were in separate branches of the government.
“The same Justice Department can investigate and prosecute this president [Donald Trump] and his family, Hunter explained. “It does for all administrations. It’s democracy. Three co equal branches of government. You are always more vulnerable to the overreach of one of those co equal branches when you are in power. Every presidents family is held to a higher standard is a target. It’s the price of being the most powerful group of people in the world. It’s why our democracy remains viable. It’s unfair at times, but in the end, the system of justice usually works and like you we are redeemed and the truth prevails. The unfairness to us allows for the greater good.”
Archer replied that he was still depressed, and told Hunter that he loved him anyway.
“Everyone but you sucks, including them all,” Archer wrote, adding “your brother was with me.” It is not currently known how deeply Joe Biden’s late son Beau was involved in the family’s influence-peddling endeavors.
“Every great family is persecuted prosecuted in the us,” Hunter wrote back. “You are part of great family—not a side show not deserted by them even in your darkest moments. Thats the way Bidens are different and you are a Biden. Its the price of power. and the people questioning you truly have none whereas you do through perseverance and poise.”
“Archer’s arrest was just par for the course for Hunter,” Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene wrote on X. “Hunter didn’t just peddle his family’s influence to secure business deals that would otherwise be unattainable, he knew he and his associates would largely be shielded from the scales of justice because of his last name: Biden.”
Devon Archer, Hunter Biden’s former best friend and business associate, asked Hunter why appointees from the Obama/Biden Admin arrested him.
Hunter explained, “It’s democracy…every presidents family is held to a higher standard…it’s the price of being the most powerful group… pic.twitter.com/K5PFVKLbHm
— Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene???????? (@RepMTG) July 31, 2023
Over the weekend, federal prosecutors in Manhattan pushed for Devon Archer to report to prison to begin his one-year prison sentence for the fraud case.
Archer’s attorney and the Justice Department both tried to shut down “speculation” that a DOJ letter sent to a federal judge Saturday was meant to keep Archer from giving information about the first son’s business interests to the House Oversight Committee Monday morning.
“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,” Archer’s lawyer, Matthew Schwartz said in a statement.
“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.”
Archer was all smiles when he arrived in court Monday morning.
Why is Devon Archer all smiles?
pic.twitter.com/h9CzxQQjo0
— Juanita Broaddrick (@atensnut) July 31, 2023
The embattled businessman reportedly canceled three previously scheduled depositions after Oversight Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) issued a subpoena in June for him to appear.
As expected, Archer testified before the House panel that Hunter Biden included his father, then serving as vice president, on speakerphone over 20 times during meetings with his overseas business partners.
???? BREAKING: Hunter Biden’s former business partner Devon Archer testified that VP Joe Biden was put on speakerphone 20+ times to “sell the brand” in business discussions pic.twitter.com/uwtgXcJPfZ
— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) July 31, 2023
Joe Biden has claimed for years that “I have never spoken to my son about his overseas business dealing.” In recent weeks, the White House has adopted the line that the president “was never in business with his son.”
During the break in the hearing, Rep. Daniel Goldman (D-N.Y.) downplayed the revelation, saying that Archer testified that Joe Biden just cordially said hello to his son’s foreign business associates. Goldman argued it was preposterous to think there was anything more to it.
????ITS HAPPENING????
Biden’s de facto lawyer Rep. Daniel Goldman is visually shaken, sweaty and in PANIC after hearing Devon Archer’s testimony.
Goldman admits Joe DID coordinate with Hunter's business associates but he was just to “say hi”
Watch the PANICpic.twitter.com/WVEYbYPnWW
— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) July 31, 2023
According to Goldman, Archer testified that there were just niceties on the phone calls, and talk about the weather when Joe Biden was on the phone.
Democrat Rep. Dan Goldman: "There were approximately 20 occasions … that Hunter Biden would ask his father to say hello to whomever he was at dinner" — "some times when it was friends and some times when it was potential business partners." pic.twitter.com/gR3Y51UH7X
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) July 31, 2023
A committee source told CNN that according to Archer, Hunter Biden, was just selling the “illusion” of access to his father.