- Details
- By Tribal Business News Staff
- Policy and Law
President Donald Trump has pardoned Devon Archer, who was convicted in 2018 of defrauding the Oglala Sioux Nation for roughly $60 million.
Archer participated in a complex scheme that defrauded the tribe’s economic development arm between 2014 and 2016. After gaining control of investment firms, Archer and his co-conspirators convinced the tribe’s Wakpamni Lake Community Corporation to issue bonds, which they then purchased using client funds.
Instead of investing the proceeds in annuities as promised to the tribe, they diverted millions for personal use—including a $10 million Manhattan apartment purchased in Archer's name—and to finance acquisition of companies for their planned financial services conglomerate.
Archer was convicted, appealed immediately, and had his conviction reinstated by the New York Court of Appeals. He was later sentenced to one year and one day in prison, and ordered to pay $43 million in restitution and forfeit $15 million in funding and assets.
Archer never served his sentence before Trump pardoned him on Tuesday. Trump cited Archer’s 2023 congressional testimony about his former business partner, Hunter Biden, as the reason for the pardon.
"I think he was treated very unfairly," Trump said as he signed the pardon. "He was a victim of a crime as far as I'm concerned. So, we're going to undo that."
The pardon eliminates Archer's conviction and erases the restitution and forfeitures owed as a result of the original conviction.
In 2023, Archer testified before the House Oversight Committee regarding his work with Hunter Biden while the two were on the board of directors for Ukrainian energy company Burisma. Biden and Archer joined the board in 2014, at a time when Joe Biden was vice president and oversaw the United States’ dealings with Ukraine. The Committee asked Archer about whether or not Joe Biden influenced national policy to support his son’s business dealings.
Per a transcript of that testimony, Archer said that while Hunter Biden used his father’s name as a “brand,” Archer had no knowledge of wrongdoing by the former president.
