Hunter Biden’s ex-partner cooperating in bizarre murder-for-hire prosecution, court records show

Devon Archer, the former Hunter Biden confidant convicted of fraud in January, whose testimony to Congress transformed the congressional impeachment probe into alleged Biden family corruption, also is a cooperating witness in an unrelated federal murder-for-hire prosecution, according to court records.

Archer's lawyers have used their client's cooperation in the Vermont murder-for-hire case and the impeachment inquiry in Congress to successfully delay his sentencing last month in a securities fraud case, where he was convicted back in 2018.

According to the court docket, U.S. District Judge Ronnie Abrams granted Archer’s motion to argue the sentencing and scheduled a hearing date for Nov. 8, 2024.

"The primary reason for this request is to allow Mr. Archer to complete his ongoing cooperation with Congressional and Department of Justice investigations, and to allow the Court to have all relevant information about that cooperation at sentencing,” defense lawyer Matthew Schwartz wrote.

Correspondence in the court files states that Archer is also cooperating as a witness in a separate prosecution in Vermont centering on a murder-for-hire plot and fraud. 

The defendants in that case, Serhat Gumrukcu of Los Angeles and Berk Eratay of Las Vegas, were charged with wire fraud in connection to a murder-for-hire plot and the January 2018 kidnapping and death of Gregory Davis, according to a Justice Department press release.

Archer is cooperating as a witness because he was a victim of one defendant’s fraud and is not “in any way involved in the alleged criminal conduct in that case,” his lawyer clarified for the judge.

Archer’s testimony last year emerged as a central component of the House Oversight Committee’s impeachment investigation into President Joe Biden. He has continued to cooperate with that committee’s investigation, according to the court filing.

Archer was convicted of securities fraud and conspiracy to commit securities fraud in 2018 in a Manhattan federal court as part of a tribal bonds scheme that involved some of Hunter Biden's associates, though Biden was never accused of wrongdoing in that scheme.

Another defendant in the case, Jason Galanis, would later tell the House Oversight Committee that the fraudulent scheme set up by him and Archer was for the purpose of raising money for a hedge fund with Hunter Biden, a firm that his father was set to join after his vice presidency. Indeed, there is evidence that Hunter Biden was closely associated with the firm at the center of the fraud scheme, Burnham Asset Management.

In February 2022, Archer was sentenced to one year and a day in prison. After an appeal, Archer's legal team argued that he was improperly sentenced according to erroneous guidelines and that his lawyer provided ineffective counsel by not objecting to this error. In May, the federal judge agreed with his appeal on those grounds and ordered him to be resentenced.

You can read the Jul. 16, 2024, letter from Archer’s lawyer below:

Archer's lawyer noted that his client “continues to produce documents to the House Oversight and Judiciary Committees and otherwise respond to their inquiries.” Additionally, the lawyer wrote that Archer is still expected to deliver “testimony in open hearings in the coming weeks” before the House committees, though a date had not been set when the July 16 letter was written. No hearings with Archer have taken place in the subsequent month.

The House Oversight Committee did not respond to a request for comment from Just the News. It is unclear if President Joe Biden’s decision not to seek reelection just days after Archer’s letter had or will have any effect on the ongoing investigation.

Last year, Archer testified to the committee that he considered his former business partner Hunter Biden to be a “lobbyist” who leveraged a “very powerful name” to score millions in deals with foreign oligarchs and businesses, including a Ukrainian energy firm that was seeking protection from corruption probes and other legal woes, Just the News reported.

Archer said during a July 2023 transcribed interview with the Oversight Committee that Joe Biden as vice president helped his son reinforce a family “brand” that brought value to foreign clients seeking influence in Washington. That value at times included the current president attending dinners or coming on the phone to make small talk with suitors from China, Russia, Ukraine and Kazakhstan.

In the case of the Ukrainian-based Burisma Holdings – one of Hunter Biden’s most controversial clients – the "Biden brand" brought a sense of protection from legal threats and investigations that the energy company was facing, Archer stated.  At the time, Ukrainian authorities were investigating Burisma for allegations of corruption against its founder, Mykola Zlochevsky.

“How would that work?” committee member Rep. Dan Goldman, a New York Democrat, asked Archer at one point in the interrogation.

“Because people would be intimidated to mess with them,” Archer answered. 

“In what way?,” Goldman inquired. 

“Legally,” Archer explained.

You can read Archer’s testimony below:

Archer testified he was unaware of any wrongdoing by Joe Biden but acknowledged it was unusual how or why Hunter Biden would put his father – a sitting U.S. vice president – on the phone while he was overseas courting potential business partners. He estimated it happened about 20 times over a decade, including with one of Hunter Biden’s Chinese suitors.

Archer told investigators one of these calls was requested by Burisma owner Zlochevsky and his corporate secretary, Vadim Pozharskyi, while the group were attending a company board meeting in Dubai, United Arab Emirates.

Pozharskyi and Zlochevsky asked Hunter Biden to “call D.C.,” according to Archer’s testimony about the event. “The request was I think they were getting pressure and they requested Hunter, you know, help them with some of that pressure,” Archer said.

Archer also confirmed that Joe Biden attended two dinners at the ritzy Cafe Milano restaurant, in Washington DC: one in 2014 with Russian oligarch Yelena Baturina and some Kazakh businessmen and another the next year with a group that included Burisma executive Pozharskyi. Despite this, President Biden repeatedly insisted that had never met with any of his son's business partners, a statement that ultimately proved to be entirely false.

Archer’s lawyer wrote that his client hopes the judge will consider Archer’s full cooperation with these investigations when it comes time for the resentencing.

“While we appreciate that this case has been pending for some time, we respectfully submit that there will be no prejudice from adjourning Mr. Archer’s sentencing by a few months, and that the interests of justice will be served by allowing Mr. Archer to complete his cooperation and by the Court having all relevant facts at its disposal at the time of sentencing,” Schwartz wrote.