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Jim Comer Isn’t Telling The Truth About Devon Archer’s Testimony – He Wasn’t Even in the Room When It Happened
For months House Republican Oversight Committee Chairman Jim Comer has been making damning allegations about President Joe Biden, his son Hunter, and what Republicans now call the “Biden Crime Family,” while promising to produce evidence to back up his claims.
Chairman Comer has never proven President Biden has accepted any bribe, much less the $5 million bribe Republicans have repeatedly implied was offered and accepted.
On Monday, behind closed doors, Comer’s Oversight Committee heard testimony, not under oath but under penalty of perjury, from Hunter Biden’s former business partner, Devon Archer.
During the approximately four hours he testified, with his counsel present, Archer stated there was no bribe, and he had no knowledge of any bribe.
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From the transcript released by the Oversight Committee on Thursday:
Mr. Schwartz. Are you aware of a $5 million payment —
Mr. Archer. No.
Mr. Schwartz. — to one Biden and a $5 million payment to another?
Mr. Archer. No.
Mr. Schwartz. You ever hear anything about that?
Mr. Archer. In that document.
That document is the now-infamous FD-1023 that U.S. Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA) released against the wishes of the Dept. of Justice, which took time to show it in a SCIF to several members of Congress.
It is essentially a transcribed record of a second-hand tip that has never been proven.
Moments later in the Archer testimony:
Q If someone were to conclude from this that this is evidence, this Form 1023 is evidence that Joe Biden was bribed by Mykola Zlochevsky, would you disagree with that conclusion?
A. Yeah, I would.
And still later:
Q In other words, it’s not that Hunter Biden was influencing U.S. policy. It’s that Hunter Biden was falsely giving the Burisma executives the impression that he had any influence over U.S. policy.
A I think that’s fair.
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Later:
Q. …Hunter Biden talked to his dad a lot. that right?
A. He talked to him every day.
Q. He was his son.
A. Correct.
Q. Father and son talked all the time.
A. Uh-huh.
Q. In 2015, in spring of 2015, Beau Biden died. Is that right?
A. That’s correct.
Q Did the frequency of interactions between Hunter Biden and his father increase after Beau Biden’s death?
A I would say yes.
Q Did Joe Biden regularly check in on his son who’s admitted he had issues with —
A Every day.
Q — drugs and other issues?
A Uh-huh.
Q. Yes?
A Yes. Sorry.
Q In the context of those conversations, did you ever witness them discussing the substance of Hunter Biden’s business?
A. No.
The Washington Post‘s Philip Bump on Thursday wrote, “Devon Archer said the opposite of what Republicans claimed.”
Bump explains that on Monday, shortly after the Devon Archer testimony concluded – testimony that Chairman Comer, according to the transcript, which recorded everyone present – did not attend: “testimony for which Comer wasn’t present,” as Bump writes, Comer and House Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan appeared on Fox News for an interview with Sean Hannity.
“Archer’s testimony was enormously damaging to President Biden, they suggested, with House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) insisting that Archer’s testimony made the bribery allegation he’d first introduced two months ago ‘more credible.’ That allegation centered on the Ukrainian energy company Burisma, where Hunter Biden and Archer once sat on its board,” Bump writes.
As the transcript proves, Comer was not telling the truth.
Again, Archer said, the only time he had ever even heard a $5 million bribe was in there FD-1023, which was from an unnamed second-hand source.
“What Archer said not only doesn’t comport with the presentations made by Comer and Jordan on television (which were obviously wrong from the outset), his testimony undermines the idea that Burisma wanted Shokin fired, that Zlochevsky paid any bribe — and, crucially, that Joe Biden was involved in any of this,” Bump reveals.
“Archer severely undercut Republican claims about Hunter Biden’s interactions with his father,” he adds.
“So,” Bump continues, “he was asked, did Hunter Biden ever ask his father to take official actions on behalf of his business partners? ‘He did not,’ Archer said. ‘He did not ask him — to my knowledge, I never saw him say, do anything for any particular business.'”
Bump then criticizes Comer.
“Consider the first words out of Comer’s mouth in that interview with Hannity: ‘Every day this bribery scandal becomes more credible.’ In fact, Archer’s testimony pointed precisely in the opposite direction.”
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Maine Democratic U.S. Senate nominee Graham Platner is under fire after releasing a video declaring that new allegations against him are false, yet he is “taking time to reflect” on a path forward.
Politico on Monday afternoon reported that a woman who dated Platner, Jenny Racicot, “says he forced her to have sex with him nearly five years ago despite her repeated objections, an allegation Platner denies.”
“Racicot said she had an on-and-off relationship with Platner,” Politico reported, “for more than two years before he entered her rural Maine home uninvited one night in late 2021, deeply intoxicated, and forced himself on her while she repeatedly told him to stop. She said she cut off contact with him after telling him the encounter was not consensual.”
In a video posted to social media eleven minutes after the Politico story dropped, Platner says, “I wanted to directly address the troubling, serious, and false allegations against me. Any accusation of nonconsensual behavior is categorically false.”
He said he and his supporters “were united in a love of Maine, a belief that our politics must change, in a focus on defeating Susan Collins.”
“So, regardless of the inaccuracy of the reporting, but mindful the political reality will inflict, we are taking the time to reflect on the best path forward for the state that I love, the people that I love, the movement I belong to, and the goal of defeating Susan Collins.”
“Those were the goals when we launched this campaign. And they remain my goals today.”
“Throughout it all, you never turned your back on me. And I will not turn my back on you now. Every one of you deserves to see that vision come to fruition and see Susan Collins defeated. And we will use every tool at our disposal to do so.”
The Bulwark’s Tim Miller, a political commentator who served as the communications director for the Jeb Bush 2016 presidential campaign, blasted Platner.
“I’m sorry but ‘we are taking time to reflect on the best path forward’ is not an option on the table,” Miller wrote. “Either it’s false and you campaign with vigor or it’s true and you get out / apologize to everyone you let down.”
Journalist Ryan Grim, commenting on Platner’s video, noted that Platner “strongly suggests he is considering dropping out. Already Troy Jackson and Chellie Pingree, both gubernatorial candidates, are being kicked around in Maine circles as potential replacements.”
Several others, including Puck News’ Peter Hamby, predicted Platner will be dropping out.
Platner had postponed several campaign events before the Politico story was published.
— Graham Platner for Senate (@grahamformaine) July 6, 2026
President Donald Trump is facing backlash after posting a video of children — including showing their unblurred faces — graduating from kindergarten, with some of the girls purportedly wearing hijabs.
“President Trump posted a captionless video of graduating kindergarteners on Truth Social on Monday, goading his supporters into verbally attacking little children simply for being Muslim,” The New Republic reported. “The clip is from Gateway STEM Academy, a majority-Black K-8 public charter school in St. Paul, Minnesota. It shows about 21 children in caps and gowns on stage singing a song together. Most of the girls are wearing hijabs.”
The original post of the video which Trump reposted reads: “Public school in St. Paul, Minnesota. Every girl is in a hijab … in kindergarten.”
Trump did not add any comments. TNR called the post “Islamophobic, weird, and creepy,” while noting that the comments section of Trump’s post was filled with calls “by racist, xenophobic MAGA supporters” to “deport the children and ban hijabs.”
TNR also noted that it “should come as no surprise that Trump isn’t above attacking children who just learned how to read, but this post is still particularly discomforting—and will certainly contribute to the already potent level of anti-Muslim sentiment in the U.S. and in Minnesota.”
Critics blasted Trump.
“There is something deeply unsettling about the president of the United States—the most powerful person in the world—going after kindergarten schoolchildren in Minnesota because they wore hijabs, as Trump has done this morning on his website,” The Bulwark’s Sam Stein wrote.
One social media commentator wrote, “Trump posted an unblurred video of more than a dozen Muslim kindergartners to Truth Social, exposing the children’s faces while targeting them for their religion.”
Another added, “Trump is a bigot. The president took to Truth Social to attack kindergarteners in hijabs. These are little kids. The president isn’t just a bigot, he’s also a coward.”
The original video was posted to the X social media platform in June.
U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) at the time commented, “If you are in a public school in America, you should be speaking english.”
Image via Reuters
President Donald Trump’s apparent efforts to delay releasing the $5.8 million civil judgment to E. Jean Carroll are being met with a warning by the journalist’s legal team, who suggest there could be a legal maneuver for Trump to employ to forgo paying the judgment in either of the two cases he lost.
According to The Guardian, on July 4, U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan ordered Trump to release the $5.8 million judgment, which is in escrow, to Carroll by this coming Tuesday — or explain why he would not do so.
Carroll’s attorneys think Trump may be trying to buy time to mount another legal strategy, telling the judge that Trump’s request for an extension “appears to be little more than yet another play for time.”
“The case is separate from Trump’s appeal of a Manhattan civil jury’s 2024 award of $83.3m to Carroll for defamation,” The Guardian explains. “But her lawyers have suggested a legal scenario in which the president might seek to conjoin the cases and further delay payment of both.”
Carroll’s attorney Roberta Kaplan (no relation to the judge) wrote, “We can only assume that defendant is seeking … to buy time so he can try to concoct some new basis to put off paying plaintiff presumably in connection with his forthcoming petition and motion for a rehearing.”
Trump’s former attorney, Justin Smith, in one of his final acts, wrote to the Supreme Court suggesting that his client would be appealing the $83.3 million civil judgment.
Smith argued that the Supreme Court “may wish to consider the petitions together,” given they involve the same parties.
The larger judgment case involves possible questions of presidential immunity, and that has Carroll’s attorneys concerned.
“A conjoined case, Carroll’s lawyers fear, could result in both judgments being wiped out,” The Guardian reports.
The president has also made clear he is no fan of Judge Kaplan, after the jurist made several rulings that “angered” Trump.
“What else can you expect from a Trump Hating, Clinton appointed judge, who went out of his way to make sure that the result was as negative as it could possible be,” Trump wrote on Truth Social in 2023, “speaking to, and in control of, a jury from an anti-Trump area which is probably the worst place in the US for me to get a fair ‘trial’.”
Image via Reuters
Platner Scorched Over ‘Taking Time’ Video After New Accusation
Trump Sparks Fury Online After Posting Unblurred Video of Muslim Kindergartners in Hijabs
One Legal Maneuver Threatens to Undo Everything E. Jean Carroll Won
Inside the Group Helping MAGA Voters Walk Away — And What Finally Pushed Them
