Devon Archer, Hunter Biden’s former business partner, has denied Republican assertions that the DOJ planned to throw him in jail before his testimony before the House Oversight Committee on Monday – the latest move in the Republican-led probe against the president’s controversy-ridden son.
According to court records, the Justice Department made a fresh motion over the weekend requesting a judge to set a date for Archer to surrender to jail and begin completing his one-year sentence stemming from a conviction in an unrelated fraud case. Archer was convicted in 2018 of conspiring to defraud a Native American tribe. However, his one-year sentence, which was to be served in February 2022, has been continually postponed due to appeals and delays.
The move, however, sparked immediate speculation among some Republicans that the Biden administration was attempting to prevent Archer from answering questions about Biden Jr. before the GOP-led House Oversight Committee, though the government explicitly requested in a court filing that Archer’s sentence begin after he finished his congressional testimony.
In a statement, Archer’s attorney affirmed that his client does not believe the DOJ request is relevant to the planned closed-door interview, while continuing to reject calls for a surrender date.
“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 on Monday,” Archer’s attorney, Matthew Schwartz, said in a statement Sunday. “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,” Schwartz added.
Over the weekend, some right-wing and MAGA supporters repeated the unfounded assertion that the DOJ wanted Archer to report to prison for an unrelated fraud conviction in order to “intimidate” him ahead of his congressional appearance.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York wrote to trial judge Ronnie Abrams on Saturday, requesting that she set a date for Archer to report to jail.
Archer’s testimony is planned at a time when House Republicans are attempting to impeach the President by tying him to problematic business operations by his son. On Monday, Archer is also expected to testify that Hunter Biden repeatedly put his father on loudspeaker during business meetings in order to meddle in his son’s overseas business operations.
