Devon
Archer, far left, with former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter, far
right, in 2014.
A photo obtained by Fox News' "Tucker
Carlson Tonight" shows former Vice President
Joe Biden and his son Hunter golfing in the Hamptons with Devon
Archer, who served on the board of the Ukrainian natural gas company
Burisma Holdings with Hunter.
Earlier this month, Joe Biden told Fox News in Iowa that he never discussed his
son’s foreign business dealings with him.
“I have never spoken to my son about his overseas
business dealings,” Biden said, pointing the finger at President Trump. “I know
Trump deserves to be investigated. He is violating every basic norm of a
president. You should be asking him why is he on the phone with a foreign
leader, trying to intimidate a foreign leader. You should be looking at Trump.”
Hunter Biden told The New
Yorker previously that he and his father had spoken “just once” about
his work in Ukraine.
A source close to Archer told Fox News the
photo was taken in August 2014. Contemporaneous news reports indicate the vice
president was in the Hamptons at the time.
Hunter Biden and Archer joined the Burisma Holdings board
in April 2014.
Earlier this month, Trump suggested that despite his
claims, Joe Biden seemingly discussed Ukraine matters with his son. The White
House has sought to point to possible corruption by the Bidens, amid the
House Democrats' formal impeachment inquiry against the president.
“And now, he made a lie when he said he never spoke to
his son,” Trump said. “Of course you spoke to your son!”
Biden has acknowledged on camera that in spring 2016, when he was vice
president, he successfully pressured Ukraine to fire top
prosecutor Viktor Shokin. At the time, Shokin was investigating Burisma Holdings — where Hunter had a lucrative role on the board despite limited relevant
expertise.
The vice president threatened to withhold $1 billion in
critical U.S. aid if Shokin was not fired.
"Well, son of a b---h, he got fired,"
Biden joked at a panel two years after leaving office.
Shokin himself had already been widely accused of
corruption.
Critics alleged Hunter
Biden might have been selling access to his father, who had pushed Ukraine
to increase its natural gas production.
"Impossible to justify $50k/month for Hunter Biden
serving on a Ukrainian energy board w zero expertise unless he promised to sell
access," political scientist Ian Bremmer tweeted.
Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani, on Sunday, suggested Shokin
was the target of an international smear campaign to discredit his work.
In a combative interview on ABC News' "This Week" on Sunday,
Giuliani presented what he said was an affidavit signed by Shokin that
confirmed Hunter Biden was being investigated when Shokin was fired.
"I have an affidavit here that's been online for six
months that nobody bothered to read from the gentleman who was fired, Viktor
Shokin, the so-called corrupt prosecutor," Giuliani said. "The Biden
people say that he wasn't investigating Hunter Biden at the time. He says under
oath that he was." The Shokin affidavit purportedly said the U.S.
had pressured him into resigning because he was unwilling to drop the
case.
Later, Giuliani added: "I have another affidavit,
this time from another Ukrainian prosecutor who says that the day after Biden
strong-armed the president to remove Shokin, they show up in the prosecutor’s
office -- lawyers for Hunter Biden show up in the prosecutor’s office and they
give an apology for dissemination of false information."
After anchor George Stephanopoulos expressed
skepticism, Giuliani fired back: "How about if I -- how about if I
tell you over the next week four more of these will come out from four other
prosecutors? ... No, no, no, George, they won’t be [investigated], because
they’ve been online for six months, and the Washington press will not accept
the fact that Joe Biden might have done something like this."
Speaking separately to Fox News'
"Sunday Morning Futures," Giuliani brought up the affidavits
and called the situation Clintonesque.
“The pattern is a pattern of pay for play. It includes
something very similar to what happened to the Clinton Foundation,"
Giuliani said, "which goes to the very core of, what did Obama
know and when did he know it?"
Giuliani referred to a December 2015 New
York Times article about Hunter Biden, Burisma and a Ukrainian
oligarch, and how the younger Biden's involvement with the Ukrainian company
could undermine then-Vice President Biden's anti-corruption message.
"The question is," Giuliani
asked, "when Biden and Obama saw that article, about how the son was
pulling down money from the most crooked oligarch in Russia, did Obama call
Biden in and say, 'Joe, how could you be doing this?'"
“Tucker Carlson Tonight” producer Alex
Pfeiffer contributed to this report.
Gregg
Re is a lawyer and editor based in Los Angeles. Follow him on Twitter @gregg_re.
