Joe was on phone with Hunter because he 'called his son every day to check in' when they were dealing with Beau's illness, White House says as they double down on denying president was involved in his deals

The White House said resident Joe Biden was just calling to check in on Hunter when he was on calls with his son's business associates.

'This is part of the right-wing's misinformation machine to try to confuse people about what the truth is,' White House spokesperson for oversight and investigations Ian Sams told CNN on Wednesday morning.

'The truth is that the president, as he said publicly for years, calls his family every day to check in. He calls his son every day to check in. He calls his other family members to check in to see how they are doing. He loves them. They are a tight-knit family.'

Hunter's former business partner Devon Archer told the House Oversight Committee in testimony this summer that Hunter had put his father on speakerphone during business meetings about 20 times.

Sams argued those calls were personal as the White House doubled down on its pushback to Speaker Kevin McCarthy opening an impeachment inquiry into the president. The administration also sent a letter to news organizations pushing the outlets 'to ramp up its scrutiny of House Republicans for opening an impeachment inquiry based on lies.'

At the time of Archer's closed-door testimony, Democrats in the room said Archer described the calls as personal.

'The witness indicated that Hunter spoke to his father every day, and approximately 20 times over the course of 10-year relationship, Hunter may have put his father on the phone with any number of different people, and they never once spoke about any business dealings,' Democratic Rep. Dan Goldman of New York said at the time.

'As he described it, it was all casual conversation, niceties, the weather, what's going on. There wasn't a single conversation about any of the business dealings that Hunter had,' Goldman noted.

What year was it? Beau died in 2015

According to the transcript released by the House:

The first reference in the transcript of Devon Archer puts the first phone call sometime in 2011.

3 BY MR. MANDOLFO:
4 Q Are you aware of Hunter Biden putting his -- or have been told that Hunter
5 Biden put his father on speakerphone during any of these interactions that you're just
6 describing now?
7 A Yes.
8 Q Can you please tell us about that?
9 A He put him on speakerphone, again, occasionally. Specifics, like, you know,
10 dinner -- you know, dinners occasionally.
11 Q Can you tell us about those dinners?
12 A Yeah. I remember a dinner in Paris with a French energy company that
13 was -- we were speaking to an advisor, and then -- we were speaking to. And it was
14 really a Rosemont Seneca Advisors type of -- a Rosemont Seneca Advisors kind of a pitch,
15 at the end of the day. And there was a talk, and he said that we're at this -- you know,
16 we're at this restaurant in Paris, and he put him on the speaker. So that did happen.
17 There were other people there.
18 Q Who else was there?
19 A There was me, myself; Hunter; Eric Schwerin; and then the executives from
20 the French energy company.
21 Q Do you remember the name of that company?
22 A I'm sure you could find it. It was probably, like, a 2011, you know, trip
23 planning. But it was a very large French energy company.

The next reference by Devon Archer places another phone call during Biden's trip to China in December, 2013. I can't find any other time that Hunter Biden was in China, so it had to be during the 2013 trip with VP Joe.

2 Q Do you recall other times where Hunter Biden placed his dad on
3 speakerphone?
4 A In you know, a dinner -- a dinner in -- with BHR, with Jonathan Li.
5 Q Where was that dinner?
6 A In Beijing, at, you know, some restaurant -- or Chengdu or something like
7 that. I don't remember the -- I don't remember specifics. This was just -- it was
8 not -- it was like a, you know -- especially with the time zone difference, there was -- you
9 know, there were meetings where his dad would call and he would be talking to him or
10 put him on speaker. I'm not going to -- you know, that's -- that happened.
5 Q One of the phone calls that you discussed with Vice President Biden on was
6 with an individual by the name of Jonathan Li.
7 A Yes.
8 Q Who is Jonathan Li?
9 A He is the CEO of BHR.
10 Q When was that phone call?
11 A That I don't recall. Just --
12 Q Do you remember the year?
13 A I don't. It would be before, you know, spring of '16 and after spring of
14 2013.

Finally, Devon Archer says that Hunter Biden put Joe on speakerphone about 20 times during his entire partnership. Rosemont Seneca Partners was founded in June 2009. Archer suggests in the transcript that he was there for 10 years. This means that he witnessed 20 phone calls between 2009 and 2018.

10 Q How many times would you say that Hunter Biden put his father on
11 speakerphone or referenced his father being on the phone in front of others who were
12 either foreign investors or foreign nationals who he was soliciting business with or
13 working with, approximately?
14 A Approximately? The differentiation between investor and normal course
15 of day -- you know, that's a very hard thing to speculate on. But he -- they spoke every
16 day. He acknowledged that they spoke every day. And he would -- you know, he
17 would sometimes make it apparent that he spoke to his dad, and sometimes he put him
18 on speaker.
19 But as far as quantifying the number, you know, relative to investors, I don't know.
20 Q Not necessarily investors but with people who Hunter Biden was trying to
21 either get business with or make contacts with or add value to?
22 A In my 10 -- in my whole partnership, maybe 20 times.

The Democrat rebuttal comes from this little bit of transcript led by Democrat Rep. Dan Goldman. There was one phone call that Archer recalls was initiated by Joe Biden. After Goldman gets Archer to agree that VP Joe initiated the call, Goldman then pivots to Biden calling his son every day to "check in" on the speakerphone, and then implies that all the calls were check in calls on speakerphone, not just the Paris call. Goldman is hoping that the juxtaposition of the two lines of questioning will leave a misdirection in the minds of the readers.

The White House is using that call to imply that Biden made all of the calls to Hunter.

Q I want to come back -- there was a lot of conversation in the Republicans'
19 hours of questioning about these phone calls --
20 A Uh-huh.
21 Q -- around the presence of business partners.
22 A Right.
23 Q I think you've discussed the Dubai call --
24 A Yes.
25 Q -- which you didn't actually --
1 A That one I did not --
2 Q -- hear at all.
3 A Yes.
4 Q There was a call in Paris --
5 A Uh-huh.
6 Q -- and you mentioned a call with Jonathan Li.
7 A Yes.
8 Q During those calls -- let's start with the one in Paris.
9 A Sure.
10 Q -- did Joe Biden -- was Joe Biden calling Hunter Biden? Was Hunter Biden
11 calling Joe Biden?
12 A I believe on the Paris, it was he called Hunter.
13 Q He called Hunter.
14 A Uh-huh.
15 Q One of the regular kind of check-in calls?
16 A Uh-huh.
17 Q You said he'd call him every day.
18 A Yep.
19 Q And Hunter Biden picked up --
20 A Correct.
21 Q -- and put him on speakerphone? Is that correct?
22 A Yes.

I hope this answers your question.

-PJ

‘....he calls his family every day to check in. He calls his son every day to check in. He calls other family
members to check in to see how they are doing. He loves them. They are a tight-knit family’.......

Republicans have charged Biden........ and his family...... made millions off shell companies Hunter Biden formed when his father was vice president. Hunter had business deals with an energy company in the Ukraine, received a discounted stake in a private-equity firm in China, and did consulting for a Romanian real-estate magnate.

The president has denied any involvement in his son’s business dealings. But ........Republicans claim at least a dozen Biden family members could be involved in a scheme to benefit financially......... from Biden’s public office.

The GOP also claims Biden sat in on at least 24 calls with Hunter’s influence peddling business partners and was referred to as ‘the big guy’ by Hunter’s business associates. And they say Joe Biden used pseudonyms to discuss his activities related to Ukraine with his son Hunter during his time as vice president.

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