Hunter Biden’s former best friend, Devon Archer, who emerged as a key figure in the House GOP’s probe into the Biden family’s business affairs, appears to have completely abandoned the Biden family that abandoned him. Archer showed up this weekend at a Trump event, proudly posing in a red Make America Great Again hat. 

Archer, a longtime business associate of Biden’s, attended the Trump event with another estranged business partner of the first son, Tony Bobulinski, who’s claimed that President Biden was involved in a long-running “influence-peddling scheme.” Mr. Bobulinski tried to blow the whistle on the president’s knowledge of his son’s business affairs before the 2020 election, and was the recipient of the infamous email that mentioned “ten percent” for the “big guy.”

The event was at a Pennsylvania State University football game tailgate on Saturday. Archer and Mr. Bobulinski, wearing their red MAGA hats, stopped by the Trump voters registration table that was located just outside of the stadium. 

“Tony Bobulinski and Devon Archer here at the Penn State Nittany Lion game against Kent State, and we’re here fighting for Donald J. Trump to win Pennsylvania and to win the White House. God bless America!” Mr. Bobulinski said in a video posted to X.

The two men were joined by conservative activist Scott Presler, who has been registering voters in Pennsylvania for the Trump campaign and the Republican Party. 

“I’m proud of Scott Presler and all the hard work his team’s putting on here in Pennsylvania,” Mr. Boobulinski said. 

“Let’s deliver Pennsylvania for Donald J. Trump!” Mr. Presler added, eliciting cheers from Mr. Bobulinski, Archer, and the other people gathered around the three men. 

Archer and Biden first met through Archer’s Yale roommate, the ketchup heir Chris Heinz, and became fast friends. The three men later started a consulting and lobbying business together that brought in millions of dollars from both powerful domestic business interests, as well as foreign corporations and individuals, drawing on Biden’s family name, and that of Mr. Heinz, who is the stepson of Secretary Kerry. Mr. Heinz exited the partnership in 2014 after Archer and Biden created ethics concerns after they joined the board of the Ukrainian energy company, Burisma, for a large fee. 

Archer told the House’s impeachment inquiry committee that the basis of his and Biden’s consulting and lobbying operation was nothing more than selling the “Biden brand.”

In an interview with Tucker Carlson after his deposition before the impeachment inquiry, Archer said that the president was fully aware of what his son was doing with those foreign business interests while he was serving as vice president. Archer was the first to disclose that the president would call into his son’s business meetings and dinners, though he says he never heard the elder Mr. Biden call into the meetings to discuss business explicitly. Archer described it to Mr. Carlson as more of a “party trick” to have the sitting vice president on speaker phone. 

Archer’s connections to Biden put him under scrutiny from federal prosecutors, and he was eventually convicted of defrauding a Native American tribe and was sentenced to a year in prison. Archer’s conviction was thrown out on appeal, then reinstated, and the Supreme Court then declined to hear Archer’s own appeal. He has so far avoided having to report to prison.

Emails taken from Biden’s now notorious laptop showed Biden promising Archer, as prosecutors circled, that “you are a Biden” and that he’d be protected. 

He was not, at least entirely. One of the other men involved in the alleged Native American fraud operation, Jason Galanis, is serving more than a decade-long sentence over the matter in an Alabama prison. Galanis was interviewed by impeachment investigators at the prison, and claimed that Biden was aware of the tribal bond scheme. 

“I realized that prosecutors in the … Southern District of New York has gone lightly on Devon Archer and had not indicted Hunter Biden at all despite the then-available documentation that we were partners,” Galanis told investigators. “We were involved in the decision-making and involved in the illegal self-dealing, and all of us had financially benefited from these schemes.”

“Hunter Biden and Devon’s company, Rosemont Seneca Bohai, received $15 million of the tribal bond fraudulent scheme to be invested in,” Galanis said.

Biden’s representatives over the years have denied he had any involvement in the tribal scheme.

Archer’s presence at the rally in a MAGA hat suggests he may be hoping for a pardon from President Trump should he be reelected. Archer’s lawyer did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the New York Sun about his involvement with the Trump campaign, or if he was hoping for a pardon from the former, and possibly future, president.

During his interview with Mr. Carlson, Archer, now facing financial ruin and prison, blamed his friendship with Biden for the “downward trajectory” of his life and career.