Devon Archer, the former Biden family business associate set to provide closed-door testimony to congressional investigators on Monday, will likely be in no mood to shield the first family from incrimination in shady foreign deals. 

Archer, 49, is staring down a year-long prison sentence for securities fraud, a conviction that he believed Hunter Biden and President Biden should have protected him from.

Messages uncovered on Hunter Biden’s discarded laptop computer show his once-close partnership with Archer unraveling in March of 2019, as Archer was trying to overturn his conviction and sentence of one year plus a day in prison.

Archer sent a series of texts to Hunter Biden, asking him, “Why did your dad’s administration appointees arrest me and try to put me in jail? Just curious. Some of our partners are asking out here.”

Devon Archer was arrested by federal law enforcement in May 2016, when the elder Mr. Biden was concluding his second term as vice president in the Obama administration. Archer, along with six others, was charged with defrauding the Oglala Sioux Tribe of more than $60 million, using the money “to pay for their own personal expenses, homes, cars, travel, and jewelry,” according to court records.

Before his arrest, Archer was one of Hunter Biden’s closest business associates and helped the first son and his family secure millions of dollars from deals involving Ukraine, China and Russia. 

Archer met with Vice President Biden in the White House and was pictured alongside him on the golf course. He also served with Hunter Biden on the board of the Ukraine energy firm Burisma, which paid the two men millions of dollars, allegedly to obtain Mr. Biden’s help in shoo-ing off a prosecutor investigating the company.

But his close connections did not spare him prosecution and conviction.

Archer’s 2019 texts to Hunter Biden show not only his frustration and fear about his legal woes, but his willingness to invoke the suspicious business deals that yielded millions of dollars in profits for as many as 10 Biden family members.

“Why would they try and 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 wrote to Hunter Biden. “I don’t get it. And I’m depressed. Bunch of these Asians getting in my head and asking me the same so just curious what should I answer.”

Archer may have been referring to executives from the now-defunct Chinese energy firm CEFC and associated State Energy HK Limited, which are tied to the Chinese Communist Party. Company officials provided millions of dollars to the Biden family and a small group of business associates, including Archer, who helped facilitate the deals.

House investigators are eager to talk to Archer about payments received by the Bidens from Chinese nationals and other foreign entities, as well as a claim made by a paid FBI informant that Hunter Biden and then-Vice President Biden were each paid a $5 million bribe by Burisma CEO Mykola Zlochevsky.

Archer is poised to provide key information to help investigators piece together the extent of Mr. Biden’s involvement in his son’s business deals, which would contradict the president’s claims that knew nothing about them.

Archer is expected to tell House investigators that on as many as two dozen occasions, Hunter Biden patched his father by phone into the middle of his business deals.

One media outlet reported he’s in hiding after receiving threats. His New York-based lawyer, Matthew Schwartz, did not respond to a request for a comment about it. 

In a statement released last week, Mr. Schwartz said, “There have been many leaks and much speculation about Archer’s potential statement to the Oversight Committee, but next week, Archer will get to speak for himself.”

Archer, who is the nephew of the late Massachusetts crime family boss Whitey Bulger, has remained out of prison while appealing his conviction but he may not be free for long.

In June, the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected his effort to have the conviction and his sentence thrown out.

In Archer’s 2019 text message exchange with Hunter Biden over his legal problems, the president’s son responded with a condescending diatribe that isn’t likely to engender Archer’s loyalty as he testifies before House lawmakers while facing federal prison. Archer’s testimony will take place in the wake of the collapse of an unusual sweetheart plea deal Hunter Biden was offered by federal prosecutors and which a judge rejected that would have spared him any jail time for tax fraud and lying on a gun background check form. 

Hunter Biden told Archer in the 2019 text message exchange that his family couldn’t rescue him from prosecution “because there’s no connection or control” between the Justice Department and the Biden vice presidency. 

“It’s democracy. Three co equal branches of government,” he lectured Archer. “You are always more vulnerable to the overreach of one of those Co equal [sic] 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.”

• Susan Ferrechio can be reached at sferrechio@washingtontimes.com.