Comer Floored: DOJ Sends 'Troubling' Letter Days Before Devon Archer Is Set to Testify on Biden Business Dealings
Two days before convicted felon and former Hunter Biden business partner Devon Archer is scheduled to testify to a House panel, the Department of Justice appeared to be in a hurry to get him off to prison.
A letter sent on Saturday from the DOJ led House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer to lash out at what he believes are continued efforts to block the investigation into the links between Hunter Biden’s business ventures and President Joe Biden.
A New York Post report last week noted that Archer would be telling the House that on at least one occasion when Joe Biden was vice president his son connected him with executives with the Ukrainian energy company Burisma, where Hunter Biden served as a board member.
The Post report said that on Dec. 2, 2015, two officials with Burisma were with Archer and Hunter Biden in Dubai when one asked the then-vice president’s son, “Can you ring your dad?”
The Post report said Hunter Biden then did so.
The potential of what Archer could say led Comer to put a sinister spin on a letter from Damian Williams, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, to Judge Ronnie Abrams in which Williams requested a date for Archer to surrender and begin his year in prison on charges of defrauding a Native American nation, according to Fox News.
New York Post columnist Miranda Devine reported on Sunday that Williams rejected a request from Archer’s attorney to have the decision postponed until Wednesday.
Comer told Mario Bartiromo on “Sunday Morning Futures” that the letter was “very troubling,” according to Fox News.
“It’s odd that it was issued on a Saturday, and it’s odd that it’s right before he’s scheduled to come in to have an opportunity to speak in front of the House Oversight Committee and tell the American people the truth about what really went on with Burisma,” he said.
Archer was also a board member of the company.
“The lengths to which the Biden legal team has gone to try to intimidate our witnesses, to coordinate with the Department of Justice and to certainly coordinate with the Democrats on the House Oversight Committee to encourage people not to cooperate with our investigation, to encourage banks not to turn over bank records, to encourage Treasury not to let us have access to those suspicious activity reports. It’s very troubling,” Comer said.
“And I believe that … this is another violation of the law. This is obstruction of justice.”
Comer said Archer can join those who have told the truth.
“He has an opportunity to be a hero, like the two whistleblowers were, like the judge in Delaware was who rejected the sweetheart plea deal from the Department of Justice to Hunter Biden. Devon Archer could be in that category of Americans that just come and tell the truth. That’s all we want,” he said.
In her column, Devine noted that Joe Biden has maintained, “I’ve never spoken to my son about his overseas business dealings,” since September 2019, but that that stance has since morphed into a comment last week from White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre that “the president was never in business with his son.”
“Big difference. They’ll soon be parsing the meaning of ‘in business,’” she wrote.
According to Devine, Bob Costello, former deputy chief of the Criminal Division of the Southern District of New York, said the office “shouldn’t be involved.”
“Why are they suddenly interested in a surrender date right on the eve of his testimony? They want to put pressure on him. They want this to be weighing on his mind,” he said, according to Devine.
“I think what the SDNY has done borders on obstructing justice, by interfering with a congressional witness. While they might technically be allowed to do this, it exhibits bad form at the very least,” he said.
Matthew Schwartz, Archer’s attorney, said his client does not agree with the theories about intimidation, according to Politico.
“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.
“To be clear, Mr. Archer does not agree with that speculation. 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,” the statement said.
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