WASHINGTON – First son of Hunter Biden former business partner Devon Archer asked a federal judge Wednesday to reduce his sentence by a year for defrauding a Native American tribe – arguing that there was an error in the initial calculation and that his cooperation in investigations into the first family justifies a further reduction of his sentence.
Archer worked closely with Hunter, 54, on foreign business dealings during Joe Biden’s vice presidency and provided explosive testimony to the House Oversight Committee in July, implicating now-President Biden in many of his son’s relationships abroad.
“Before setting a report date for Mr. Archer, we respectfully request that the Court first consider the undisputed guidelines calculation error in sentencing him, grant him habeas relief, and conduct a re-sentencing,” Archer’s lawyer, Matthew Schwartz, wrote to a federal judge in Manhattan. Ronnie Abrams, citing an “uncontested…two-tier reduction” due to Archer playing a “minor role” in uncharged conduct.
The filing adds that Archer, a 49-year-old father of three, performed “substantial civic duties” by tampering with the state’s evidence in investigations into alleged Biden family corruption.
“For the foregoing reasons, Mr. Archer respectfully requests that the Court grant Mr. Archer habeas relief, vacate his sentence and proceed with an immediate resentencing after giving the parties an opportunity to submit “Additional sentencing briefs that would allow the Court to take into account Mr. Archer’s circumstances have changed since Mr. Archer’s conviction on February 28, 2022,” Schwartz added..
“This updated presentation is necessary to address the important civic duties that Mr. Archer has carried out in the two years since the previous conviction, including Mr. Archer’s extensive cooperation with federal investigators, the continued collection of funds for several non-profit organizations and sustained support for equality. youth sports opportunity.
“Among other things, Mr. Archer has met with prosecutors for the District of Delaware and Main Justice and testified before a grand jury in the investigation of Hunter Biden (and will likely be called as a witness in the ongoing prosecution of Mr. Biden, if he were to proceed to trial), and he
voluntarily testified before the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability regarding its investigation into the Biden family’s domestic and foreign business dealings.
Schwartz concluded: “The Court should take into account, in any re-sentencing, Mr. Archer’s changed circumstances and his continued good faith participation in various government investigations, as well as his continued commitment to charitable and educational causes. , and of course his flawless record during trial preparation. released over a period of almost eight years.
A federal jury convicted Archer of two felonies in June 2018 for participating in the sale of more than $60 million in fraudulent bonds for an Oglala Sioux tribal entity in South Dakota. In addition to the prison sentence, Archer was ordered to forfeit $15.7 million and pay restitution of $43.4 million.
Archer and two other Burnham Financial Group executives were convicted by a jury of conspiracy to commit securities fraud and securities fraud. Hunter Biden was vice-president from Burnham and won up to $200,000, but was not charged for the scheme.
Archer’s conviction was reversed in November 2018 by Abrams, who ruled there was insufficient evidence against him while upholding the convictions of his two co-defendants. The 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals reinstated Archer’s conviction in 2020.
Archer revealed substantial information last year about President Biden’s alleged role in his family’s foreign dealings, which contradicted the commander in chief’s frequent assertions that he was not involved in the dealings of Hunter or his first brother James Biden.
Among other evidence, Archer published a letter he received from Joe Biden in 2011 thanking him for attending a Chinese state luncheon in Washington and expressing satisfaction that Archer was going into business with his son.
Archer also testified before Congress that he knew Joe Biden was on speakerphone during about 20 of Hunter’s overseas business meetings.
Archer also said Joe Biden had coffee with Chinese government-linked businessman Jonathan Li during an official vice presidential trip to Beijing in December 2013. The interaction had previously been reported as a handful with a quick hand.
Hunter Biden, who joined his father on the 2013 trip, launched the Beijing-backed investment fund BHR Partners with Li as CEO just 12 days after arriving in China, the Wall Street Journal reported. Hunter held a 10% stake in the company for at least part of his father’s first year as president.
Joe Biden greeted Li on the phone during Hunter’s subsequent trip to China, Archer said — in addition to writing college recommendation letters for Li’s two children.
Joe Biden, as vice president, also joined two separate dinners at DC’s Cafe Milano — in 2014 and 2015 — with that of his son Kazakh, Russian and Ukrainian customers, Archer said. Only one of those meetings was known before Archer’s testimony, and the witness rejected allegations that Joe Biden appeared only briefly.
Dinner guests included former Moscow first lady Elena Baturina, who transferred $3.5 million to an entity linked to Hunter Biden in early 2014 and separately. invested 100 million dollars with Archer’s Rosemont Realty, with whom Hunter Biden was also briefly associated.
Kazakh businessman Kenes Rakishev, who bought his second son a sports car worth $142,000, also had dinner with Joe Biden and posed for a group photo with him.
Vadym Pozharsky, an advisor to the board of directors of the Ukrainian gas company Burisma, who paid Hunter up to $1 million a year starting in 2014, when his father took control of U.S. policy toward Ukraine, wrote Hunter an email the day after the 2015 dinner thanking him for the opportunity to meet his father.
Archer further revealed that Hunter Biden walked away from a rally at the Four Seasons in Dubai in December 2015 to “call DC” with Burisma owner Mykola Zlochevsky and Pozharsky – shortly before the vice president threatened abruptly to refuse a billion dollar American loan guarantee to Kiev. as leverage to force the ouster of Ukrainian Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin.
A paid FBI informant reported that Zlochevsky said in 2016 that he had to pay $10 million in bribes to the Bidens in exchange for their help in removing Shokin.
Archer testified that he had no knowledge of Burisma executives wanting to oust Shokin and was unaware of the alleged bribe, but speculated that Zlochevsky was referring to the approximate amount paid to himself and Hunter during their tenure on the board.
Archer’s testimony before Congress prompted Republicans to launch a formal impeachment inquiry in September, which required additional testimony from participants in other Biden family dealings, including associate Rob Walker, who distributed profits from his dealings with a Romanian businessman convicted of corruption to Hunter and James Biden. and CEFC China Energy, linked to the Chinese government since its disappearance.
Walker testified last month that Joe Biden met with CEFC President Ye Jianming in Washington around March 2017 and that a transfer of about $1 million that month to Hunter and James Biden was compensation for their work with the company during the Obama-Biden administration, according to Republicans familiar with his testimony.
CEFC, a reputed cog in Beijing’s Belt and Road foreign influence campaign, later that year transferred $5.1 million to accounts linked to the Biden family within 10 days to a threatening text message in which Hunter warned a China-based associate that he was “sitting here with my father” and warned of retaliation if a trade deal was broken.
Hunter Biden to stand trial in Los Angeles from June 20 for allegedly failing to pay at least $1.4 million in taxes between 2016 and 2019 on foreign income. He faces separate federal firearms charges in Delaware after walking away from a probation-only plea deal in July following requests for immunity in court for past conduct, including alleged violations of the Foreign Agents Registration Act, which could implicate his father.