The Archive

All eyes on Hunter Biden business associate testimony

Devon Archer, a former business associate of Hunter Biden, is expected to sit down behind closed doors this morning for a transcribed interview with the House Oversight Committee to discuss his knowledge of the business dealings of President Joe Biden’s son.

Despite some last-minute drama — and accusations from House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer (R-Ky.) that the Justice Department was trying to suppress Archer’s testimony — both Democratic and GOP Oversight aides told us they expect Archer to appear.

Comer issued a subpoena to compel Archer to testify in June, arguing Archer played “a significant role in the Biden family’s business deals abroad, including China, Russia, and Ukraine.”

Archer will tell the Oversight panel that Hunter Biden placed then-Vice President Biden on speakerphone for conversations with business partners, the New York Post reported last week. This claim is significant because of the alleged direct connection between Hunter’s deals and Joe Biden — a link that congressional Republicans have failed to definitively establish thus far.

Archer served on the board of the Ukrainian natural gas company Burisma with Hunter Biden.

Archer and two others were convicted on unrelated charges in June 2018 for defrauding a Native American tribe out of $60 million of bonds. After a long legal odyssey, Archer was sentenced to a year in prison and ordered to forfeit more than $15.7 million. Archer and his co-defendants also must make restitution on the other $43 million they swindled from the tribe.

Archer’s appeal failed recently, meaning that he can be asked to report to prison, as the Justice Department did on Saturday. Republicans — including Comer — asserted that DOJ officials were trying to interfere with Archer’s appearance.

However, a federal prosecutor later said in a court filing “The Government does not request (and has never requested) the defendant surrender before his Congressional testimony.”

Archer’s lawyer also told Politico’s Kyle Cheney and Jordain Carney that they didn’t think there was any effort to stop Archer from testifying.

— Max Cohen and John Bresnahan

Congress blames White House, N.Y. for crypto talk collapse

The House Financial Services Committee advanced long-awaited legislation to regulate stablecoins late last week. It wasn’t as bipartisan as it could have been, though, and now the finger-pointing has begun.

Five Democrats ultimately backed the Republican-drafted Clarity for Payment Stablecoins Act — no small feat for Chair Patrick McHenry (R-N.C.). But the bill lacked support from Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) and other senior Democrats, which could prove decisive as the bill moves through Congress.

We’ve written a lot about one core issue that divided Waters and McHenry in negotiations — a lack of direct federal oversight for state-chartered nonbank stablecoin companies in the proposed legislation.

But in recent days, we’ve also begun to hear a lot more complaints about “third parties” involved in the negotiations. Rep. French Hill (R-Ark.) said in an interview Friday that he believed a deal could have been struck with Waters “if there were not other voices that had been heavily engaged in the analysis.”

Both the White House and the New York Department of Financial Services, led by Superintendent Adrienne Harris, played a pivotal role in conversations around the bill. Harris’ advocacy was a key reason the legislation’s supporters coalesced around having a state-only path for stablecoin firms.

The Biden administration’s Lael Brainard led the opposition to that, lawmakers say. A former Fed governor and vice chair, Brainard now serves as the director of the National Economic Council.

“Talking to Lael Brainard, we had all been talking about the same concerns,” Waters told us. “We want real federal involvement” in stablecoins.

McHenry kicked off the markup by blaming the White House for the collapse of talks. “It was a White House’s unwillingness to compromise that has once again brought that negotiation to a halt,” he said.

But it would be a mistake to focus only on the White House’s objections. Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-N.Y.), a top Democratic supporter of crypto who voted for the stablecoin bill, said Harris was “central player” in negotiations.

“New York members, such as myself, take our guidance from Adrienne,” Torres said of Harris. “If she were dissatisfied with the state option in the bill, then I would have trouble supporting it.”

Even before talks broke down, we could sense some friction stemming from NYDFS’ involvement heading into last week. When we spoke to Waters and asked about stablecoins negotiations earlier in July, the veteran lawmaker replied bluntly that “New York was still a problem.”

Republicans argue their bill introduces a “federal floor” of requirements and other regulations that state-level firms will need to comply with, even without the Federal Reserve’s direct supervision.

But Democrats say that for a federal floor to matter — particularly in states with easier stablecoin rules — firms need to contend with a federal regulator.

The White House “called on Congress to act,” Waters said during the markup Thursday.

“But they didn’t tell us to draft a federal framework that turns this regime over to states and let them run wild by not giving any federal regulator any tools to enforce the so-called federal floor,” she added.

The White House and New York Department of Financial Services didn’t respond to requests for comment.

— Brendan Pedersen

THE CAMPAIGN

Tim Sheehy, the Republican running for Senate in Montana, has two new bio spots up. They focus on his service in the Navy SEALs and his family. Sheehy is the NRSC’s favored candidate to run against Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.)

— Jake Sherman

MOMENTS

President Joe Biden is on vacation in Delaware. There will be no White House press briefings. Vice President Kamala Harris will do an interview with ABC News Live Prime today. Congress is out of session.

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