Former Hunter Biden business associate Devon Archer confirmed in testimony to Congress this week that Joe Biden attended a 2015 dinner with a Ukrainian energy executive whose company was paying Hunter Biden. The Biden campaign has denied for years that any such meeting occurred.
Archer told the House Oversight Committee that Joe Biden attended the dinner with several people, including "Vadym P. from Burisma." Archer at the time sat on the board of Burisma Holdings, a Ukrainian gas company, with Hunter Biden, who received hundreds of thousands of dollars from the company.
"Vadym P." refers to Vadym Pozharskyi, a Burisma executive who thanked Hunter Biden for bringing his father to the dinner, which took place at Café Milano in Washington, D.C.
"Dear Hunter, thank you for inviting me to DC and giving an opportunity to meet your father and spend some time together," Pozharskyi wrote in an April 2015 email that the New York Post first reported in 2020.
The Post reported in May 2021 that the meeting between Pozharskyi and Joe Biden was the 2015 dinner at Café Milano. The Joe Biden campaign has long denied that the president had any kind of meeting with Pozharskyi.
White House spokesman Andrew Bates, who worked in communications for Biden's 2020 campaign, told Politico in 2020 that the campaign "reviewed Joe Biden's official schedules from the time, and no meeting, as alleged by the New York Post, ever took place."
"I have never discussed with my son or my brother or anyone else anything having to do with their businesses, period," Joe Biden said in August 2019.
Michael Carpenter, a former Joe Biden employee who worked for him during the time of the dinner, even blamed the accusations on Russia.
"This is a Russian disinformation operation," said Carpenter, who is now Biden's U.S. representative at the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. "I'm very comfortable saying that."
But Archer this week confirmed that Joe Biden was at the dinner and stayed for a while. Some Biden surrogates had argued, if Joe Biden ever did meet with Pozharskyi, the meeting would have been brief and unofficial.
"He had dinner. He had dinner," Archer said. "I think we were supposed to talk about the World Food Programme. So, there was some talk about that."
Archer revealed this week in an interview that Joe Biden sent him a letter in 2011, contradicting the president's claims that he never discussed his son's business dealings.
"I apologize for not getting a chance to talk to you at the luncheon yesterday. … I hope I get a chance to see you again soon with Hunter. I hope you enjoyed lunch. Thanks for coming," then-vice president Biden wrote to Archer. A handwritten portion reads, "P.S. Happy you guys are together."
Archer further told the House Oversight Committee that Hunter Biden called his father more than 20 times during business meetings to sell the Biden "brand."