WASHINGTON — House impeachment investigators will travel to an Alabama prison Friday to interview a convicted scam artist to learn why he bragged to a crooked colleague that Hunter Biden would “change your access forever” while his dad was vice president.
Jason Galanis, 53, is serving a 14-year sentence for masterminding a scheme to defraud a South Dakota Native American tribe of $60 million by selling phony bonds. It’s unclear what exactly he will say about the first son.
House impeachment investigators will travel to Alabama to interview convicted fraudster James Galanis.
Hunter, now 54, was vice chairman of Burnham Financial Group, according to trial testimony and abandoned–laptop emails.
Court documents indicate the firm controlled Burnham Securities, which was the placement agent for the bond sales.
Hunter Biden — set to be deposed next week in the impeachment inquiry — was not charged in the case, but Devon Archer, Hunter’s former so-called “best friend in business,” was indicted in 2016 by the Obama-Biden Justice Department, convicted in 2018 and sentenced to one year in prison.
“Hunter and Devon will change your access forever,” Galanis wrote in October 2014 to associate Michelle Morton, who pleaded guilty to federal charges in the case in 2018, according to evidence produced in court proceedings.
Galanis allegedly bragged to a crooked colleague that Hunter Biden would “change your access forever” while Joe Biden was vice president. APHunter Biden “was part of this deal,” Archer’s lawyer Matthew Schwartz said at his trial in 2018, the Wall Street Journal reported in October 2019.
George Mesires, an attorney for Hunter Biden, told the Journal at that time that the conspirators “invoked and used Hunter’s name — without his knowledge — to lend their business venture more credibility.”
Galanis is serving a 14-year sentence for a scheme to defraud a Native American tribe of $60 million.
“As soon as Hunter learned of the illegal conduct, and that his name was being used in this unauthorized and inappropriate manner, Hunter took immediate steps to ensure that his business interests would not be associated with the Burnham Group or with any of the defendants,” Mesires said.
Archer, who is seeking a prison sentence reduction in exchange for cooperating in the impeachment inquiry and a tax fraud case against Hunter linked to foreign income, did not discuss the bonds fraud case during his own testimony to Congress in July.
House of Representatives staff from the three committees leading the impeachment inquiry will interview Galanis in Montgomery, Ala. Members of Congress are not expected to join the interview.
The impeachment inquiry has produced evidence that Joe Biden interacted with his son and brother James’ business associates from two Chinese government-linked business ventures and from Kazakhstan, Mexico, Russia and Ukraine, in addition to interacting with scandal-plagued domestic associates.
James Biden was interviewed Wednesday by the impeachment inquiry.
The probe also has investigated allegations by two IRS whistleblowers that the Justice Department helped shield Joe and Hunter Biden in a criminal investigation of tax fraud and possible violations of a foreign-lobbying registration law.
