Joe Biden told Hunter biz partner Devon Archer ‘happy you guys are together’ after 2011 China lunch

WASHINGTON — Then-Vice President Joe Biden told his son Hunter’s former business associate Devon Archer in early 2011 that he was “happy” the two were partners — in a postscript to a note thanking Archer for attending a lunch with visiting Chinese President Hu Jintao.

“I apologize for not getting a chance to talk to you at the luncheon yesterday. I was having trouble getting away from hosting President Hu,” Biden told Archer in the letter dated Jan. 20, 2011.

“I hope I get a chance to see you again soon with Hunter. I hope you enjoyed lunch. Thanks for coming,” the missive concluded.

Biden attached a handwritten note to the letter, which bears the vice presidential seal: “P.S. Happy you guys are together,” an apparent reference to their Rosemont Seneca Partners investment firm.

Archer shared the letter with former Fox News host Tucker Carlson as part of an interview that aired Wednesday and The Post also acquired a copy of the note.

“What was he thanking you for?” Carlson asked Archer, who on Monday answered questions behind closed doors before the House Oversight Committee about his work with Hunter Biden to court wealthy figures in China, Russia and Ukraine while Joe Biden was vice president.

“First of all, it’s a lovely letter,” Archer answered. “Listen, it was kind of the beginning of our partnership and he was thanking me and thanking Hunter, I think, at the end of the day for bringing this idea of this government-regulatory-strategic-advisory business into the private equity world. And I think he was excited for the prospects for Hunter and he was just thanking [me], and I think it was a nice gesture.”

“It was a nice gesture for sure. Very polite. It gets a 10 on the etiquette scale,” Carlson said, adding, “but he’s vice president of the United States and he’s talking about foreign business deals with you and thanking you for that.”

Months earlier, in April 2010, Hunter and Archer flew to Beijing, where they joined Michael Lin and James Bulger — who co-founded Thornton Group LLC and would help Hunter launch the firm BHR Partners three years later —  for meetings over three days with some of China’s most powerful state financial institutions.

During this trip, the then-second son was monitored by the Secret Service.

Three months after the luncheon, in April 2011, Hunter and Archer traveled to China and Taiwan — where they met with reps from firms including state-owned China Life Insurance Company and the China Investment Corporation sovereign wealth fund.

Around the same time, President Biden took a larger role in the Obama administration’s China policy, telling Beijing’s future leader Xi Jinping that August that: “You are our national affairs.”

During the interview, Archer said that Hunter’s foreign consulting business was centered on helping clients understand and navigate the US “regulatory environment.”

“Understanding a regulatory environment means selling access at the end of the day, and I think that’s how I think the most people working on Wall Street, whether they admit it or not, interpret it,” Archer told Carlson.

In that context, Archer went on, Hunter “was the guy who was the expert in knowing the guy.”

A transcript of Archer’s Monday testimony has not yet been released by the Oversight Committee, but members of the panel say he confirmed that Hunter Biden put his father on speakerphone at least 20 times during business meetings over the course of a decade.

Those occasions included during a Paris dinner with reps from a French energy company, Archer said, as well as while Hunter was in China with Jonathan Li of BHR Partners, a Communist Party-backed investment fund co-founded by Hunter in 2013 after he introduced his father to Li in Beijing during an official trip.

As part of a second Chinese business venture, Hunter and first brother James Biden received roughly $5 million from Chinese government-linked CEFC China Energy in 2017 and 2018, with the funds getting to Biden-linked bank accounts within days of Hunter firing off a threatening WhatsApp message warning a Chinese associate “I am sitting here with my father” and threatening revenge.

Emails released in May by the National Archives in response to transparency litigation revealed that Hunter and Archer were crafting plans for international ventures ahead of the 2011 lunch with the Chinese president and that Hunter specifically recommended that his new partner be on the guest list.

In a Nov. 18, 2010, email to another associate, Eric Schwerin, Hunter recommended that an invite be extended to Archer— after Schwerin said vice presidential office aide Michele Smith “called and said they would like some suggested names for the lunch. They have 30 spots for the VP’s personal list.”

Less than a week later, Archer emailed Hunter a list of “sovereign targets.”

“What are your off the cuff thoughts on foreign target countries?  Based on both your core relationships and your gut on likelihood of success? ….For me its: China[,] Turkey[,] Mexico[,] Argentina[,] India[,] Columbia[,] Israel[,] Norway, Serbia, Singapore, Korea, Canada[,] Germany & Australia [and] Gulf Region,” Archer wrote.

Archer is a central figure in the Biden family’s international dealings.

In April 2014, he met with Joe Biden the same month that he and Hunter joined the board of Ukrainian gas company Burisma Holdings, according to Obama White House visitor logs. Burisma paid Hunter Biden up to $1 million per year for his board role, despite no relevant energy industry experience, as his father assumed control of the Obama administration’s Ukraine policy in the chaotic aftermath of a pro-Western uprising in Kyiv.

Archer confirmed to the Oversight Committee that then-Vice President Biden attended an April 2015 dinner at Washington’s Cafe Milano with Burisma executive Vadym Pozharskyi and former Moscow first lady Yelena Baturina, as previously reported by The Post.

Archer apparently did not shed further light on some of the biggest allegations of misconduct involving the Bidens, such as an FBI informant’s recently surfaced 2020 claim that Burisma owner Mykola Zlochevsky said in 2016 he was “coerced” to pay $10 million in bribes to Hunter and then-Vice President Joe Biden in exchange for US support to oust Ukrainian prosecutor-general Viktor Shokin, who had investigated Burisma.

Devon Archer Testimony, all the explosive allegations made so far

Devon Archer is a former business partner of Hunter Biden’s who was found guilty of trying to defraud a Native American tribe of almost $60M in bonds and was sentenced to a year-and day-long prison sentence. He testified before Congress Monday and made several bombshell allegations. Here is what has been brought to light so far.

• Archer testified that Ukrainian natural gas company Burisma Holdings added Hunter Biden to their board because of the Biden “brand,” and paid Hunter up to $1M a year.
• “Burisma would have gone out of business if ‘the brand’ had not been attached to it,” Archer claimed.
• Devon Archer testified that Hunter Biden referred to his father Joe as “my guy” and connected him to foreign business associates.
• Burisma owner Mykola Zlochevsky put pressure on Hunter Biden to build US support for Ukrainian prosecutor-general Viktor Shokin who was investigating his company, Archer testified.
• Joe Biden was put on speakerphone in business meetings at least 20 times, Archer testified.
• Hunter Biden bragged that Chinese business tycoon Che Feng loved him for his “last name” and was impressed by the group of “handsome Aryan godlike men” Biden brought with him “everywhere I go” in a 2011 email.
• Che Feng helped Hunter Biden’s firm secure favorable terms on a business partnership with Jonathan Li’s Bohai Capital and lateral launch Bohai Harvest RST, emails show.
• “I don’t believe in lottery tickets anymore, but I do believe in the super chairman,” Hunter Biden boasted in an email. Superchairman was the first son’s nickname for Feng.
• Archer testified that Joe Biden met with Li while he served as Vice President and wrote a college recommendation letter for his daughter.
• Archer claimed that Feng was so generous to Hunter Biden due to his family connections.

A Republican readout of Archer’s testimony indicates that at one point during a meeting, Hunter Biden, Zlochevsky and Pozharskyi stepped away and “called DC” about the issue.

It’s also unclear if Archer clarified the extent of the Biden family’s business relationship between with Baturina and another Russian billionaire, former arms contractor Vladimir Yevtushenkov — neither of whom have been sanctioned by President Biden as part of a campaign to squeeze Russia’s business elite to end the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Baturina transferred $3.5 million in February 2014 to a Hunter Biden-linked firm, according to a 2020 report from GOP-led Senate committees. Biden allies have pointed the finger at Archer, claiming he used a once-shared corporate entity for his own dealings.

Archer was sentenced last year to one year behind bars for defrauding an American Indian tribe and federal prosecutors on Saturday requested that a federal judge begin the process of sending him to prison.

Additional reporting by Miranda Devine.