Trump pardoned Devon Archer, a Hunter Biden associate, remitting $43M restitution for his tribal-bond fraud conviction

On March 25, 2025, President Donald Trump granted a full and unconditional pardon to Devon Archer, a former business associate of Hunter Biden. The clemency remitted $43 million in restitution and $15 million in asset forfeiture that had been ordered following Archer's conviction for his role in diverting roughly $60 million raised through bonds issued by the Oglala Sioux Nation's Wakpamni Lake Community Corporation. The funds were supposed to be invested in annuities but instead financed a $10 million Manhattan apartment and other personal and business acquisitions.

Archer had been sentenced to one year and one day in prison but never served time before the pardon. Trump linked the clemency explicitly to Archer's 2023 testimony to Congress about Hunter Biden's business dealings, saying, "I think he was treated very unfairly...So, we're going to undo that." The underlying $60 million tribal-bond fraud conviction itself was not in dispute; Trump's stated rationale framed the pardon as rewarding Archer's cooperation as a witness against a political rival's family rather than as correcting a wrongful conviction.