In the midst of Russia’s savage assault of Ukraine, Donald Trump made it a point on Tuesday to press Vladimir Putin to turn over any documentation he may have regarding Hunter Biden’s ties with Russian billionaires.
According to an excerpt from a recent interview with Just The News, the ex-president expressed special interest in a purported $3.5 million payment from the widow of the former mayor of Moscow to a firm co-founded by Hunter Biden.
‘Why did Moscow’s mayor’s wife offer the Bidens – both of them – $3.5 million?’ That’s a lot of money,’ Trump said in a 30-second clip on Voice of America.
‘She handed him $3.5 million,’ he said. So I’d expect Putin to know the answer to that. I believe he should make it public. ‘I believe we should know the answer.’
Trump was alluding to a 2020 Senate Republican investigation that stated Yelena Baturina, one of Russia’s wealthy billionaires, donated the money to a business named Rosemont Seneca Thorton as part of a “consultancy deal.”
Earlier this month, Trump accused Biden of having a ‘conflict of interest’ when the president, along with a slew of other US officials, including his son Hunter and Hillary Clinton, were sanctioned by Moscow.
He said that Biden’s failure to respond more forcefully to Putin’s invasion of Ukraine was due to purported payments from the late Moscow mayor’s widow.
‘Breaking News: Joe Biden has been sanctioned by Russia.’ While that is a terrible thing in so many ways, perhaps it will finally be revealed why the Biden family received 3.5 million dollars from the wife of the extremely wealthy former Mayor of Moscow,’ Trump stated in a statement on March 15.
Days later, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki was probed over why Baturina had not yet been sanctioned by the US for Russia’s attack, despite her clear links to the Kremlin – and whether Biden was truly divided.
Psaki said that there was ‘no confirmation’ of the Senate Republicans’ charges, and that the president has ‘continued to penalise oligarchs more than we’ve ever sanctioned in the past, so I’m not sure there’s a conflict of interest.
Hunter Biden, according to GOP legislators, co-founded the corporation that accepted Baturina’s money. However, the president’s son’s counsel earlier stated that he never received the monies and was not involved in the firm.
Hunter Biden is a co-founder of Rosemont Seneca Advisors, and it’s unclear what, if any, ties the two firms have.
The payment from the Russian oligarch was allegedly made when Hunter’s father was vice president.
The September 2020 Senate investigation, issued just weeks before the presidential election, found no misconduct on the part of President Joe Biden.
That hasn’t stopped Trump from accusing his Democratic opponent of being swayed by foreign influences.
It does, however, state that ‘the extent to which Hunter Biden’s presence on Burisma’s board influenced US policy toward Ukraine is unclear.’
It also refuted Trump’s claim that Biden persuaded Ukraine’s government to fire a corrupt top prosecutor in order to protect his son.
Hunter was on Burisma’s board from 2014 to 2019 and was paid around $50,000 per month.
The latest Trump interview comes as a federal investigation into Hunter Biden’s foreign business operations in the nation heats up.
