The full transcript of the House Oversight Committee's interview with Devon Archer – Hunter Biden's former best friend and business partner – shows how a key Democrat on that committee, New York Rep. Daniel Goldman, managed to spin out a positive headline from an interview that was otherwise damaging to President Biden.
After Archer's closed-door committee interview on Tuesday, Democrats emphasized to media outlets that Archer had described what Hunter Biden was peddling as "the illusion of access" to his father.
But the transcript shows that the phrase "illusion of access" was first introduced by Goldman. The transcript also shows that Archer first agreed, but then equivocated, on whether the "illusion of access" description was fair.
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"It's not about selling access to his father. It's about selling the illusion of access to his father. Is that fair?" Goldman questioned.
"Is that fair? I mean, yeah, that is – I think that's – that's almost fair," Archer responded.
"Almost fair. Why almost fair?" Goldman probed.
"Because there – there is – there are touch points and contact points that I can't deny that happened, but nothing of material was discussed. But I can't go on record saying that there was – there was communications," Archer replied.
Archer went on to describe that phone calls between Hunter Biden and his father were a sort of "signal" to his business partners about potential influence and access provided by Joe Biden.
"People send signals and those signals are basically used as currency. And that's kind of how a lot of D.C. operators and foreign tycoons and businessmen work," Archer described in questioning.
Archer said he never witnessed details about business dealings being discussed with Joe Biden on the phone, but that the calls along were "signal enough to be powerful."
"I think that the calls were – that's what it was. They were calls to talk about the weather, and that was signal enough to be powerful," Archer said.
Archer told investigators that Hunter Biden used his "very powerful name" to "add value" in pitching and securing foreign business ventures.
Archer said Hunter Biden "would not be so overt," or "overtly" say "we’re going to use my dad for this," but instead, Archer said that he would use the name to "get leverage."
"Defensive leverage that the value is there in his work," Archer said.
"The value that Hunter Biden brought to it was having — you know, there was — the theoretical was corporate governance, but obviously, given the brand, that was a large part of the value," he continued. "I don’t think it was the sole value, but I do think that was a key component of the value."
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Archer told investigators that Hunter put his father, then-Vice President Joe Biden, on speakerphone while meeting with business partners at least 20 times. Archer described how Joe Biden was put on the phone to sell "the brand."
"You aren’t talking about Dr. Jill or anybody else. You’re talking about Joe Biden. Is that fair to say?" Archer was asked.
Archer replied: "Yeah, that’s fair to say… Obviously, that brought the most value to the brand… It was Hunter Biden and him," Archer said. "We would discuss having, you know, an understanding of D.C. and that was a differentiating component of us being able to raise capital."
The transcripts also show that Archer witnessed Hunter Biden putting his father on speakerphone during meetings with business associates.
Archer also contradicted a key claim from Biden's orbit about a dinner the now-president attended with a Burisma executive.
Goldman's office referred back to the transcript when asked by Fox News Digital about its contents.
Fox News Digital's Brooke Singman contributed to this report.
