Former President Donald Trump called on Russian President Vladimir Putin to release information about alleged business dealings President Joe Biden’s son Hunter Biden has entered with Russian oligarchs.
Trump made his request during an interview with Just the News that will air Tuesday evening, and it comes as Russia wages a war in Ukraine.
Trump specifically referenced a 2020 report from the Senate homeland security and finance committees claiming that in 2014, Elena Baturina, the then-wife of Moscow’s mayor, paid $3.5 million to a company linked to Hunter Biden.
“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. “I think we should know that answer.”
“How is it that the mayor of Moscow, his wife gave the Biden family $3.5 million?” Trump reiterated. “I think Putin now would be willing to probably give that answer.”
The White House did not respond to inquiries on the subject by press time, but press secretary Jen Psaki has repeatedly declined to answer questions on Hunter Biden’s business dealings on the grounds that he doesn’t work for the government.
Trump and his allies sought to highlight a number of scandals involving Hunter Biden during the final weeks of the 2020 election. Those claims involved Hunter’s drug use and alleged dealings with a number of high-profile Chinese and Eastern European businessmen.
The laptop hard drive sourced as the key piece of evidence behind those claims was dismissed as Russian disinformation at the time, but it was later corroborated as authentic by a number of media outlets, including the New York Times earlier in March.
The former president’s first impeachment was also sparked by efforts to strong-arm Ukraine into investigating Hunter Biden’s business dealings, an attempt at damaging a 2020 presidential run from Joe Biden.
Several Democrats have blamed Trump for enabling Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.
“There’s only been one president in recent history who coddled, excused, and cozied up to Vladimir Putin: Donald Trump,” Ammar Moussa, a spokesman for the Democratic National Committee, previously told the Washington Examiner. “And let’s not forget, the overwhelming majority of the Republican Party enabled Trump for four years as he sold out Ukraine, undermined our allies, and embarrassed us on the global stage.”
Moussa added that the president, on the other hand, “has united our allies to stand up to Putin and enforce unprecedented sanctions to hold Russia accountable for launching an unprovoked and unjustified war.”
