Biden says ‘I never talked business’ with Hunter as he finally addresses Devon Archer testimony

An irritated President Joe Biden insisted he ‘never’ talked about business with his son Hunter as he finally addressed Devon Archer’s damning testimony to Congress.

Biden snapped at Fox News’ Peter Doocy for asking a ‘lousy question’ at the end of an event on wind farms in New Mexico.

Doocy confronted the president and said: ‘There’s this testimony now where one of your son’s former business associates is claiming that you were on speaker phone a lot talking business.’

The White House correspondent was referring to claims by Archer that Joe had been on speakerphone or present in-person around 20 times while Hunter was meeting associates. 

Biden responded: ‘I never talked business…I knew you’d have a lousy question’.

‘Why is that a lousy question?’ Doocy asked.

‘Because it’s not true’, Biden clapped back before walking off.

Hunter’s former business partner Archer testified to the House Oversight Committee last week that the then-vice president had been present on speakerphone or in-person around 20 times over 10 years while Hunter was meeting with associates. 

Archer did not claim to have ever heard Joe Biden discussing business but said Hunter would use his father as a flex – and hearing the voice of the vice president on speed dial was enough to sell the ‘brand’ to foreign executives. 

‘I can definitively say at particular dinners or meetings, he knew there were business associates,’ Archer told Fox News’ Tucker Carlson last week in an interview following his testimony. 

‘I don’t know if it was an orchestrated call in or not. It certainly was powerful, though, because, you know, if you’re sitting with a foreign businessperson and you hear the vice president’s voice, that’s prize enough,’ Archer went on. 

‘Sometimes it was the call was coming in and the speaker would go on,’ Archer said, detailing the conversations. ‘You understand D.C. right? So the power to have that access in that conversation – it’s not in a scheduled conference call and that’s a part of your family. That’s like the pinnacle of power in D.C.’

He had told the committee of the conversations: ‘If his dad calls him at dinner and he picks up the phone, then there’s a conversation. And the, you know, the conversation is generally about the weather and, you know, what it’s like in Norway or Paris or wherever he may be.’

Through the investment and policy advisory firm Archer and Hunter Biden led together – Rosemont Seneca – Hunter led on ‘government regulatory issues,’ said Archer.

‘Did Hunter have regulation expertise?’ asked Carlson.

‘I think he led a team that did,’ said Archer, noting that the work Hunter did was primarily knowing who to call. 

On Wednesday the Oversight Committee released a bank records memo detailing the $3.5 million that billionaire Yelena Baturina wired to Rosemont Seneca, which was transferred through other accounts that Archer and Hunter had direct access to. 

Baturina, the wife of a former Moscow mayor, attended a dinner with then-VP Biden, Hunter and Archer shortly after in 2014 and was not among the Russian oligarchs slapped with sanctions over the war in Ukraine. 

The records also show a wire for the exact amount Hunter paid for a ritzy sports car – $142,300 – coming in one day before he transferred it out to buy the vehicle. That wire came from Kazakh oil oligarch Kenes Rakishev – who also had a dinner with the vice president around the same time.