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Devon Archer used his knowledge about Hunter Biden’s foreign business dealings to gain favor from Republicans and appeal for clemency.
Kenneth P. Vogel has written extensively about President Trump’s use of his clemency powers.
March 29, 2025, 5:03 a.m. ET
In the weeks before the 2020 election, Devon Archer was on the precipice of publicly turning against the Bidens after years of remaining silent.
He held previously unreported phone calls with a well-connected ally of President Trump. The ally suggested that the Trump administration might be able to make fraud charges against Mr. Archer go away if he spoke out ahead of the election about his longtime business partner Hunter Biden, the son of Joseph R. Biden Jr., according to three people familiar with the conversations who spoke on the condition of anonymity to reveal private discussions.
Unsure whether the offer was solid, Mr. Archer stayed quiet. He told people he knew that he hoped a pardon would come if the elder Mr. Biden became president.
But after Mr. Biden took office, Mr. Archer was largely frozen out by the family, according to three associates of the Bidens who did not have permission to discuss the relationship publicly.
Over the subsequent months and years, as Mr. Archer protested his innocence while his case pin-balled through the courts, he began quietly making inroads with Mr. Trump and his allies. He cooperated with investigations examining the millions of dollars that Hunter Biden reaped from foreign businesses, and how those dealings overlapped with his father’s work as vice president. He provided information to prosecutors, journalists and Republican congressional investigators.
On Tuesday afternoon, that journey from Biden insider to Trump devotee was completed. Mr. Trump applied the choppy marker strokes of his signature to a full and unconditional pardon for Mr. Archer, wiping away his conviction in a scheme to defraud investors and a Native American tribal entity of tens of millions of dollars.
