Hunter Biden’s former business partners are no longer under the same scrutiny now that investigations into whether the former president’s son used his family name for financial gain are over.
Devon Archer and Jason Galanis, who both collaborated with Biden on various business ventures between 2012 and 2015, received pardons and commutations, respectively, from President Donald Trump after he took office.
Archer, who has worked over the years to gain favor with Trump’s world, signaled he would be interested in working for the Trump administration were a position offered to him, according to the New York Times. ‘I’m full MAGA now,’ he told the Times. ‘They’re more my people.’
Archer was reportedly given the cold-shoulder by the Biden family during President Joe Biden’s tenure in the Oval Office, and as he protested his innocence amid Republicans’ probe into the Biden family, Archer quietly made inroads with the Trump administration.
While Archer awaits a potential job in the Trump administration, he is reportedly working on a book and documentary chronicling his experiences. Archer is also reportedly working on a business project in the crypto industry as well.
As a result of their pardons, both Archer and Galanis did not have to serve prison sentences handed down to them in relation to defrauding investors and a Native American tribal entity of tens of millions of dollars through a company for which Hunter Biden was listed as the vice chairman.
In an interview on Fox News’ ‘Hannity’ this month, Galanis thanked President Trump and lauded Republicans, such as Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, for bringing ‘the proof’ to light about ‘the Biden crime family.’
Galanis said during the interview that his ‘legitimate’ businesses became ‘illegitimate’ after they were aligned with the president’s son. ‘100% of it was influence peddling,’ Galanis said when asked about his view of the Biden family’s business practices. ‘I saw it firsthand.’
Meanwhile, James Biden, Hunter’s uncle, is not sailing so smoothly, with Republicans requesting that the Trump administration prosecute the former president’s brother for lying to Congress.
James Biden allegedly denied that his brother, the former president, met in May 2017 with his son’s business associate Tony Bobulinski while pursuing a deal with a Chinese-owned energy company, CEFC China Energy.
Bobulinski, a key witness during the GOP’s impeachment inquiry on account of claims he was privy to unethical business dealings by the Biden family, recently lost a defamation battle in court against Fox News host Jessica Tarlov.
Bobulinski was seeking $30 million in damages after Tarlov claimed during an episode of ‘The Five’ that Bobulinski’s legal fees were being paid for by a Trump-aligned political action committee.
Another notable ex-business partner of Hunter Biden, Eric Schwerin, has kept a low profile ever since Republicans on the House Oversight Committee released his testimony from the GOP’s impeachment inquiry. In his testimony, Schwerin stated he was ‘not aware of any financial transactions or compensation’ that Joe Biden received as vice president related to his family’s business dealings.
Hunter Biden’s ‘Sugar brother’ and lawyer, Kevin Morris, who helped finance the first son’s legal fees with a reported $6.5 million, later told associates that his generosity left him financially tapped.
According to a report by the N.Y. Post, Morris faced his own ethical issues when he was accused of spying on a movie production about President Biden called ‘My Son Hunter’ that was being made in Serbia. The filmmaker involved with the project, filmaker Phelim McAleer, hit Morris with a bar complaint in 2022.
‘He used deceit to secure such access by not disclosing he was Mr. Biden’s lawyer. Mr. Morris used his cover as a documentary filmmaker to conceal his true purpose: performing legal investigative work on behalf of his client, Mr. Hunter Biden,’ McAleer said in his bar complaint.
The California Bar Association declined to disbar Morris in late 2024.
Ye Jianming, a Chinese billionaire and former chairman of CEFC China Energy, one of the companies Republicans alleged Hunter Biden sought to gain favor with using his family name, has reportedly disappeared from public view, Reuters reported in 2023. While his whereabouts are unknown, according to Reuters, Jianming’s name has appeared in graft trials of senior Chinese Communist Party officials and state bank executives.