Trump pardons Devon Archer, first Biden-inquiry witness given clemency

On March 25, 2025, President Donald Trump signed a full pardon for Devon Archer, Hunter Biden's former business partner. Archer was convicted in 2018 of his role in a $60 million tribal-bonds fraud — a scheme that defrauded Native American tribes by issuing fraudulent bonds against tribal credit — and sentenced to a year and a day in federal prison. He exhausted his appeals when the Supreme Court declined to hear his case in 2024.

Trump staff secretary Will Scharf publicly framed the pardon as remediation for a "political prosecution," telling CBS News the case's "tone and tenor changed dramatically after [Archer] began to cooperate with congressional investigators and serve as a witness against Hunter Biden and the Biden family." Archer was the central witness in the House Oversight Committee's 2023 impeachment inquiry into Joe Biden, testifying that Hunter Biden sold "the illusion of access" to his father and that Joe Biden "brought the most value to the brand" of Hunter Biden's foreign business dealings. The pardon came one week before Trump commuted the sentence of Jason Galanis — Archer's co-defendant and a second Biden-cooperator witness — captured in a companion action.