Former President Donald Trump is calling on Russian leader Vladimir Putin to release any information he possesses on Hunter Biden’s dealings with oligarchs in Eastern Europe.
In an interview with the Just the News television show on Real America’s Voice airing Tuesday, the former president cited a 2020 Senate report that disclosed Russian oligarch Yelena Baturina, then the wife of Moscow’s mayor, provided $3.5 million a decade ago to a company co-founded by President Joe Biden’s son and unanswered questions about why the money was given.
“She gave him $3.5 million so now I would think Putin would know the answer to that. I think he should release it,” Trump said in a wide-ranging interview at his Mar O Lago resort in Florida. “I think we should know that answer.”
A grand jury in Delaware has been investigating Hunter Bjden’s business dealings for possible tax violations, foreign lobbying issues and money laundering. Hunter Biden has acknowledge the probe but denied wrongdoing.
Trump said he also would like to know more about Hunter Biden’s relationship with Ukrainian oligarch Nikolai Zlochevsky, the owner of the Burisma Holdings gas company that hired the Biden scion in 2014 to its board and paid him hundreds of thousands of dollars a year.
At the time, the State Department considered Burisma to be a corrupt company that made bribes to Ukrainian officials and viewed Hunter Biden’s relationship as having created the appearance of a conflict of interest because his father, then Vice President Joe Biden, oversaw U.S.-Ukraine policy.
A memo obtained by Just the News in January of this year also revealed that senior State officials were warned that Hunter Biden’s dealing in the country had undercut U.S. anticorruption policies.
“Now, you won’t get the answer from Ukraine,” Trump lamented, referring to his 2020 impeachment over seeking Ukraine’s help investigating the Biden’s business dealing .
Trump said he tried to raise the issue of Hunter Biden’s dealings with oligarchs during the 2020 election but was shut down by then-Fox News anchor Chris Wallace.
“How is it that the mayor of Moscow, his wife gave the Biden family three and a half million dollars? I think Putin now would be willing to probably give that answer,” Trump said. “I’m sure he knows.”
While encouraging Putin to reveal any information he has on the Biden family business dealings, Trump also made clear he treated Putin more severely than Democrats by blocking his NordSteam 2 natural gas pipeline to Europe, imposing sanctions on Moscow, upgrading the U.S. nuclear arsenal and bulking up NATO’s sagging finances.