President Trump is granting legal relief to another former associate of Hunter Biden who testified before Congress about the so-called “influence-peddling scheme” that allowed the Biden family to make millions both at home and abroad. The former business partner, Jason Galanis, had been sentenced to serve more than 15 years in prison for his role in defrauding a Native American tribe alongside other Biden associates. 

Mr. Trump issued a full commutation for Galanis on Friday afternoon, according to records posted by the Justice Department on Monday. The commutation will allow Galanis to leave federal prison while avoiding additional fines and restitution payments. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the commutation. 

Galanis pleaded guilty in 2020 to multiple charges related to numerous fraudulent business schemes, with the most famous being his attempt to defraud a Native American tribe alongside another former Biden family business associate, Devon Archer, who also received a pardon from the president. Like Galanis, Mr. Archer testified before Republicans’ ill-fated impeachment inquiry into President Biden. 

Mr. Archer had been a close friend of the younger Mr. Biden’s for years, going back to their days at Yale University together. They started multiple consulting groups that advised companies, making both men tens of millions of dollars over the course of just a few years. The 46th president’s brother, James Biden, was also involved in some of those business ventures. 

Speaking to House Republicans in 2023, Mr. Archer told impeachment investigators that his friend was selling the Biden “brand” to make his money, and that the younger Mr. Biden would call his father or take calls from his father during business affairs. Mr. Archer described this as a simple “party trick” to lure in potential business partners. 

Because he was serving his sentence in an Alabama prison, House impeachment investigators were forced to travel to Galanis in 2024 in order to interview him. In a video of that interview shared by the House Oversight Committee, Galanis claimed that Mr. Biden had set him up as the “fall guy” for the operation, even though the first son himself had made money off of the tribal fraud 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” another company, Galanis added. 

Less than one month later, Galanis testified publicly via teleconference before the House impeachment investigators about his relationship with the younger Mr. Biden. “The entire value-add of Hunter Biden to our business was his family name and his access to his father, Vice President Joe Biden,” Galanis told lawmakers.