The House Oversight Committee will meet privately with Hunter Biden’s former business partner Devon Archer on Capitol Hill on Monday. This is the most recent move in the Republican-led inquiry against the president’s son.
According to court documents, the Justice Department requested again over the weekend that a judge set a time for Archer to turn himself in and start completing his one-year sentence after being found guilty of a separate fraud offense.
Although the government explicitly requested that Archer’s sentence begin after he finishes his congressional testimony, some Republicans immediately speculated that the Biden administration was trying to stop Archer from answering questions about Hunter Biden before the GOP-led committee.
Despite continuing to resist requests to set a surrender date, Archer’s lawyer stated in a statement that his client does not think the DOJ request is related in any way to the impending private interview.
In a statement, Matthew Schwartz, an attorney for Archer, said: “We are aware of speculation that the Biden administration is trying to intimidate Mr. Archer ahead of his meeting with the House Oversight Committee on Monday by requesting that he report to prison over the weekend.
“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.
While House Oversight Chairman James Comer would only go so far as to describe the timing of the DOJ’s letter as “odd” in a Sunday interview with Fox News, other House Republicans were more forceful in their responses to the letter.
Archer’s testimony comes as House Republicans appear to be emphasizing efforts to impeach the president by connecting him to contentious business activities by his son, Hunter, rather than trying to impeach members of President Joe Biden’s Cabinet.
According to a recent CNN article, they appear to have Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s support in doing so.
Republicans are now attempting to tie the President to his son’s questionable business practices, thus House inquiries into Hunter Biden are anticipated to take center stage.
The most damning allegations against Biden, however, are that as vice president he participated in a bribery scheme with a foreigner in order to advance his son’s career, a claim the White House vehemently refutes, McCarthy said in recent weeks while speaking to CNN.
He echoed the argument used by House Democrats when they impeached then-President Donald Trump in 2019 and claimed that starting an impeachment process would unleash the entire authority of the House to disclose crucial facts.
McCarthy has warmed up to the idea of going after the president rather than members of his Cabinet, according to insiders, who also claim that McCarthy has been conferring with former House GOP Speaker Newt Gingrich on the matter.
In recent weeks, he made his most direct threat against Biden yet, claiming that House Republicans’ probes into the business dealings of the Biden family appear to be approaching the stature of an impeachment investigation.
