President Trump signed a pardon for Devon Archer, a former business partner of Hunter Biden whose congressional testimony two years ago helped fuel House Republicans’ investigation into the Biden family, the White House said on Tuesday.
Mr. Archer had been convicted in a fraud case, and was sentenced in 2022 to a year and a day in prison.
The White House did not immediately release the text of the pardon, so it was not clear which crimes or time period it covered.
Mr. Archer earned fans on the right — including in Mr. Trump’s circle — after he testified in a congressional investigation in 2023 into Hunter Biden’s business dealings. He accused the Bidens of abusing “soft power” through business deals in which then-President Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s son Hunter made millions of dollars. Supporters of Mr. Archer had argued that he was treated more harshly by prosecutors after he started cooperating with investigations into the Bidens.
Before signing the pardon, Mr. Trump on Tuesday said that Mr. Archer “was treated very unfairly” and “was a victim of a crime, as far as I’m concerned, so we’re going to undo that.”
The pardon is the latest example of Mr. Trump’s aggressive use of his clemency power to reward allies or highlight his own grievances about what he sees as the political weaponization of the justice system.
Mr. Archer, who had a background in international finance and Democratic fund-raising, partnered with Hunter Biden in 2009, helping arrange introductions to foreign business interests. In 2014, they joined the board of Burisma Holdings, a Ukrainian energy company that some in the State Department viewed as corrupt, at a time when Joseph R. Biden Jr. was serving as vice president and overseeing the administration’s Ukraine portfolio. The overlap would become a focus for Republicans.
Mr. Archer left the board and started severing his business connections with Hunter Biden after being charged in 2016 in connection with a scheme to defraud pension funds and an Indian tribe of tens of millions of dollars. He was initially convicted in 2018, but later that year a judge set aside the conviction and ordered a new trial, only to be reversed in 2020 by a federal appeals court ruling that reinstated the fraud conviction.
Matthew L. Schwartz, Mr. Archer’s lawyer, portrayed the presidential pardon as fixing a flawed decision by a jury.
“The American jury system is an amazing thing, but as the trial judge held in finding serious questions about Devon Archer’s innocence, sometimes juries get it wrong,” Mr. Schwartz said in a statement. “Today’s pardon corrects a serious injustice, and finally allows an innocent man to be free of the threat of misguided prosecution. Mr. Archer is deeply appreciative of the President.”
Mr. Archer’s congressional testimony was not a clean win for either Republicans or Democrats.
While he provided an unflattering portrayal of how Hunter Biden conducted business, Mr. Archer told congressional investigators he saw no wrongdoing by the elder Mr. Biden. The G.O.P.’s congressional investigation ultimately did not result in an impeachment case against the former president.
“Are you aware of any wrongdoing by Vice President Biden?” Mr. Archer’s lawyer asked him at one point during the closed-door testimony.
“No, I’m not aware of any,” Mr. Archer replied.
But Mr. Archer also said he believed Burisma stayed in business during tough times through its associations with influential figures in Washington, and the “brand” that Hunter Biden brought to the board.
Asked what he meant, Mr. Archer said, “Because people would be intimidated to mess with them.”
Mr. Archer testified that he could recall about 20 times when he and Hunter Biden were meeting with business associates, and Hunter Biden put his father on speakerphone. The conversations, Mr. Archer said, discussed only niceties — “How’s the weather? How’s the fishing?” — but the signal from Hunter Biden was clear, he said.
“There was not business content in these conversations,” Mr. Archer told the Trump-allied pundit Tucker Carlson in an interview after his testimony. “The idea of signals and influence — the prize is enough in speaking or hearing or knowing you have that proximity to power.”
At one point, Mr. Archer told Mr. Carlson, “In the rearview, it’s an abuse of soft power.”
Mr. Archer also said he believed it was false for defenders of the former president to say that he had no knowledge of his son’s business activities. “He was aware of Hunter’s business,” said Mr. Archer, who played golf with both Bidens. “He met with Hunter’s business partners.”
In addition to the congressional testimony, Mr. Archer in 2021 was interviewed by prosecutors and subpoenaed for documents as part of an investigation into Hunter Biden’s finances and foreign business.
Last year, Hunter Biden was convicted of gun crimes, and pleaded guilty to tax crimes related to millions of dollars in income from Burisma and other foreign businesses.
With less than two months left before he left office, President Biden issued a broad pardon for Hunter Biden for those convictions, and any other crimes he might have committed in the past 11 years, a period coinciding with the beginning of his work for Burisma.
The pardon, which troubled clemency experts, was cited by Mr. Archer’s supporters as additional justification for granting clemency to him.
A lawyer for Hunter Biden declined to comment.
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