In the hour-long video, Devon Archer explains his career trajectory and how Hunter Biden became his business partner.
The interview covers Archer’s early life, his middle-class upbringing on Long Island, how he knew his wife from childhood, the culture shock of attending Yale, and then it digs into his business ventures.
Archer then explains that as he was looking for “an edge” for his private equity firm, a mutual lawyer friend introduced him to Hunter just as the then-Vice President’s son was moving from lobbying to becoming a “strategic advisor”.
“What’s the difference?” Tucker asks.
“Well, as I understand it, when…” begins Archer and they both laugh. “You can probably answer it better than me with your background.”
“There’s a distinction but no difference that I can see,” replies Carlson.
“Right. Exactly,” says Archer.
“One you register for, the other you don’t,” says Carlson.
“Right, right. I think that there are some, you know, legal limits around registering when your father is the Vice President. So, I think that is what they ran into. And you don’t — there’s certain… again, I’m no expert,” said Archer.
“I think in Washington, you can’t lobby, but you can strategically advise,” offers Carlson with a smirk.
“So what was the business that you imagined him [Hunter] helping you with?” asks Carlson.
Archer explains that he was hoping for introductions to raise more capital in real estate or asset-backed securities, or anything else. Just basically expanding the network of both Archer’s private equity firm and Hunter’s strategic advisory business, Seneca Partners.
Carlson then jumps in that it’s “weird” that Washington is the place you go to raise money since it isn’t a place of business like New York or Los Angeles — D.C. is the place of governance, not business. He prefaces that it isn’t a criticism of Archer, but of the larger problems of corruption in Washington. Carlson comes back to this later in the interview when asking about Joe Biden’s luxurious homes that he was able to afford on a politician’s salary.
At around the 19-minute mark, Archer explains how he stumbled into the board seat on Burisma during a European business trip that happens to coincide with the 2014 Russian invasion of Crimea. The deal falls through, so in an attempt to pivot with the new reality in Europe and on the recommendation of Tri-Global, he meets with Mykola Zlochevsky, founder and President of Burisma to try to raise some money.
Zlochevsky wasn’t interested in Archer’s real estate pitch, but at the end of the presentation, says that the former President of Poland, Aleksander Kwaśniewski, had just joined the board of Burisma.
Just a few days later, Archer heads to Warsaw and talks to Kwaśniewski who sings the praises of Burisma saying that it might be Ukraine’s version of Exxon.
After starting the process of joining the board, Archer told Hunter about the opportunity and that’s when Biden joined the board.
Archer insists that he doesn’t believe that he was a “mark” sought out because of his business relationship with Hunter, but he says that he does think that Burisma knew who he was connected with, but they did see the benefit of having the son of the Vice President of the United States on their board.
Tucker then pulls out a message from Burisma asking for Hunter’s “influence” to stop “politically-motivated actions” against the company.
The interview then discusses the firing of the Ukrainian prosecutor, Viktor Shokin.
It also touches on the influence that then-Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs, Victoria Nuland, who is the current acting Deputy Secretary of State, had in Ukraine at the time.
Close to the end of the interview, Archer confirms that Joe Biden did know about Hunter’s business dealings.
Archer also talks about the President’s brother, James Biden, and the “Biden Brand.”
He also says that Hunter’s new career as a painter was “a surprise.”
Archer also says a little about Hunter’s Laptop From Hell.
Watch the video to see the entire fascinating interview.
