WASHINGTON — First son Hunter Biden’s former business partner Devon Archer told lawmakers this week that Ukrainian natural gas firm Burisma Holdings brought the political scion onto its board so that “people would be intimidated to mess with them … legally.”

Archer also revealed that then-Vice President Joe Biden met twice with his son’s shady post-Soviet business partners at DC’s Café Milano, not once as previously reported, according to the transcript of a four-hour deposition released Thursday by the House Oversight Committee.

These and other revelations blow new holes in President Biden’s claim that he never discussed business with his now-53-year-old son — as House Republicans move closer to launching an impeachment inquiry.

Archer extensively discussed the value Hunter brought to Burisma as part of the Biden family “brand” — and said he demonstrated to clients at least 20 times his ability to put his dad, the second-highest US official, on speakerphone.

Under questioning from Democratic lawyers, Archer mused that “I think Burisma would have gone out of business if it didn’t have the brand attached to it.”

“I think that’s why it was able to survive as long as it did,” he added under interrogation from Rep. Dan Goldman (D-NY).

“Well, I don’t understand. How does that have an impact?” Goldman asked.

“Well, the capabilities to navigate DC that they were able to, you know, basically be in the news cycle. And I think that preserved them from a, you know, from a longevity standpoint,” Archer added.

“But how would that work?” the Democrat pressed.

“Because people would be intimidated to mess with them,” responded Archer, clarifying “legally” when Goldman asked “in what way” they would be intimidated.

Archer also told the House Oversight Committee that most of the $3.5 million wired in February 2014 by former first lady of Moscow Yelena Baturina — who attended at least one dinner with then-VP Biden and his son — was in turn transferred to a firm co-owned by Archer and Hunter Biden after its initial receipt by an entity that Biden defenders had insisted was solely controlled by Archer.

The witness additionally revealed that Joe Biden, again while vice president, “had coffee” with Jonathan Li, the incoming CEO of Chinese state-backed investment fund BHR Partners — rather than a mere handshake greeting in Beijing in 2013, as initially reported — and that Hunter, who held a 10% stake in BHR until at least 2021, later put his dad on speakerphone with Li as well.

Only one of the oligarch gatherings at Café Milano, an upscale restaurant west of the White House in Georgetown, was previously known.

View this document on Scribd

The April 16, 2015, sit-down formed the basis of The Post’s initial October 2020 report on documents retrieved from Hunter’s abandoned laptop that implicated his father in influence-peddling.

The Biden campaign insisted at the time that the dinner was not on Biden’s “official schedules.”

Archer testified that unbeknownst to the public, there actually were two dinners at the same DC restaurant featuring the sitting vice president and collections of his son’s Eastern European patrons, with one dinner held in spring 2014, followed by the better-known April 2015 meal.

“I believe the first one was, like, a birthday dinner, and then the second was — I think we were supposed to talk about the World Food Program. So there was some talk about that,” Archer said.

The first dinner included Baturina, Kazakhstani businessman Kenes Rakishev — who wired $142,300 used on a luxury car for Hunter Biden — and former Kazakhstani Prime Minister Karim Massimov, Archer said, noting that he could not recall whether former Moscow Mayor Yury Luzhkov, who left office in 2010, joined.  

“[Joe Biden] entered the room and shook everybody’s hand,” Archer recalled.

“I don’t remember the conversation. I just remember that he was — he came to dinner, and we ate and kind of talked about the world, I guess, and the weather, and then everybody — everybody left,” he said.

“As far as — I know you’re probably going to ask, you know, how much time. I don’t — it wasn’t five minutes; it wasn’t three hours.”

The second meal featured a different lineup, including Burisma executive Vadym Pozharskyi, “Hunter, Joe, myself, Karim Massimov, a Greek Orthodox priest, maybe someone from [the] World Food Program,” as Archer put it.

Although Archer didn’t name Baturina as an attendee, her invitation was discussed among the partners in emails found on Hunter’s laptop, and a different attendee of the dinner told The Post earlier this year he saw her and Luzhkov at the event.

At the second Café Milano event, “[Joe Biden] had dinner. He had dinner,” Archer recalled.

When quizzed by Goldman, the former associate said that Joe Biden’s role at the second meal was not a brief stop-in, as characterized by a Washington Post article from 2021.

“The Washington Post reporting was that President Biden only spoke to his longtime friend, Father Alex Karloutsos, a prominent member of the Greek Orthodox Church, at that dinner. Does that coincide with your memory?” Goldman asked.

“No,” Archer replied, saying it was actually “a regular dinner” and “that’s not correct reporting.” (An attendee who spoke to The Post says Joe Biden was present for about 40 minutes and ate a meal with the group before posing for a photo with two of the Kazakhstani guests.)

Baturina and another Russian billionaire with whom Hunter partnered on US real estate shopping, former military contractor Vladimir Yevtushenkov, remain unsanctioned by President Biden, who has imposed stiff sanctions on Moscow’s business elite in response to last year’s Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Archer’s attorney, Matthew Schwartz of law firm Boies Schiller Flexner — which formerly employed Hunter Biden as of counsel — headed off additional questioning about Baturina, telling the congressional panel, “Yelena Baturina is not within scope of this interview. It’s not one of the names that you gave us.”

Baturina’s $3.5 million transfer to the entity Rosemont Seneca Thornton was part of a broader set of investments in US real estate by the Russian billionaire, Archer said. 

“We’re really not sure why that 3.5 went to RST. [Baturina’s company] Inteco invested close to $120 million with us in Rosemont Realty. So, you know, on that particular wire, there was some commission element,” Archer said. “There was a — two warehouses in Brooklyn. I don’t know what the specifics of the wire were, but it was — quite frankly, it was not supposed to go there, but that’s where it went. And RST was set up to be the equity shareholder of BHR. So Rosemont Seneca Bohai ends up being the shareholder of BHR.”

An anonymous source tried to distance Hunter Biden from the transfer by telling the Washington Post last year that Archer was supposed to dissolve Rosemont Seneca Thornton but instead used the entity for his own purposes. 

A Republican attorney revealed that, in fact, “roughly $2.5 million of that was not wired to [Archer’s firm] Rosemont Realty, it was wired to [Hunter Biden and Archer’s 50-50 corporate entity] Rosemont Seneca Bohai, right?”

“I don’t know, but if it — you’re saying that’s the case,” Archer replied.

“And Rosemont Seneca Bohai, like you just said, was a 50-50 handshake between you and Hunter Biden, right?” the committee attorney asked.

“Correct,” Archer said.

Why exactly the money went to Rosemont Seneca Bohai is unclear, with Archer saying, “Probably because it was owed.”

Hunter had a “minimal” connection to Rosemont Realty, Archer said, though he was on the company’s board “for a very short period of time.” Archer said he believed Hunter Biden received a distribution when the firm was later sold, but could not say how much.

At the two Cafe Milano dinners, “there was no business-deals specifics discussed ever at any of these things, but it was — it was a nice, you know, conversation,” said Archer.

In an interview with Tucker Carlson that was published Wednesday, Archer said that Hunter sold his ability to navigate the “regulatory environment” in Washington, which in practice means “selling access, at the end of the day.”

“You’ve got to be an expert in knowing the guy. And he was the guy that was the expert in knowing the guy,” Archer told Carlson.

Joe Biden dismissed reporting on documents from his son’s laptop as a “Russian plant” during the final 2020 presidential debate, which occurred after The Post’s second exclusive from the laptop showed Joe Biden, described as the “big guy,” was penciled in for a 10% cut in a later Chinese venture involving CEFC China Energy, Hunter Biden and first brother James Biden.

A different Hunter Biden partner, Tony Bobulinski, corroborated details of the CEFC dealings, through which the Biden family earned roughly $5 million in 2017 and 2018 — after Hunter sent a threatening message to a Chinese-government-linked associate stating “I am sitting here with my father” and warning of retribution if an agreement was not executed. 

Archer did not provide significant information on a bombshell FBI informant file released in full last month that said Burisma owner Mykola Zlochevsky in 2016 said he paid $5 million apiece in bribes to Hunter and Joe Biden in exchange for the elder Biden pushing to oust Ukrainian Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin.

But Archer offered a counter-theory that Zlochevsky considered the bribe to be the approximate amount he had paid Hunter Biden and himself for their service with Burisma.

“I would assume he’s probabl[y] talking about me and Hunter, but I don’t know,” Archer initially said before suggesting later in the interview that Zlochevsky was “sending a signal.”

“In Ukraine, in Russia,” he said, “they brag about how much — they brag about bigger bribes than they actually give.”

Some of the most contentious factual points likely to be raised if Republicans launch an impeachment inquiry weren’t resolved by Archer. For example, he said that he was unsure of whether Shokin’s ouster was sought by Burisma’s leadership and whether his removal was good or bad for the firm. 

Joe Biden publicly claimed credit for using $1 billion in US foreign aid to force out Shokin, but Democrats who impeached former President Donald Trump in 2019 for pressuring Ukraine to investigate the Bidens pointed out that Shokin’s removal was also sought by many other Western countries for his own corruption.

“The narrative that was spun to me was that Shokin was under control and that whoever the next person that was brought in was — you know, the fact that he was — this is the total, this is the narrative spun to me, that Shokin being fired was a — was not good, because he was like under control as relates to Mykola,” Archer said. “I have no way to verify that. And that was spun to me from various folks in DC, not Hunter specifically, but that was what I was led to believe. Whether it’s true or not, I cannot speculate.”

Archer said he was aware of Burisma “getting pressure and they requested Hunter, you know, help them with some of that pressure” — specifically “government pressure from Ukrainian Government investigations into Mykola, et cetera. …  it’s always this amorphous, ‘Can we get help in DC’?”

In December 2015 in Dubai Hunter stepped away and “called his dad” with Zlochevsky and Pozharskyi, Archer said. Although he was not part of the call, Archer recalled Pozharskyi telling him, “We called DC”

Hinting at potential legal liability for Hunter for failing to register under the Foreign Agents Registration Act, Archer said, “he was a lobbyist and an expert and obviously he carried, you know, a very powerful name. So I think it was — that’s what they were asking for.”

Hunter’s probation-only plea deal to federal charges for tax and gun crimes fell apart last week after questioning by a federal judge revealed discrepancies about whether the bargain granted the first son broad immunity for past crimes. Although a federal prosecutor said it did not, a non-public diversion agreement indicated he would have been shielded for uncharged offenses. 

Archer was sentenced last year to one year in prison for defrauding an American Indian tribe and the Justice Department on Saturday asked a federal judge to begin the process to incarcerate him.