(Joshua Paladino, Headline USA) Former President Donald Trump advised Russian President Vladimir Putin to release all information that he has about Hunter Biden‘s financial deals with oligarchs in Ukraine and Russia, Just the News reported.
Trump raised several specific examples of corrupt transactions, including Moscow-born businesswoman Yelena Baturina’s $3.5 million contribution more than 10 years ago to a company that Hunter co-founded.
Baturina, who was married to Moscow Mayor Yury Luzhkov until his death in 2019, amassed a net worth of more than a billion dollars from a construction company that critics claimed benefited from her husband’s political influence.
“How is it that the mayor of Moscow, his wife gave the Biden family three and a half million dollars?” Trump said, according to Just the News.
“I think Putin now would be willing to probably give that answer,” Trump added. “I’m sure he knows.”
Trump also said Putin should reveal more about Hunter’s relationship with Ukrainian oligarch Mykola Zlochevsky, who owns Burisma Holdings and, from 2014 to 2019, paid Hunter an estimated $1 million per year to sit on the board.
When Hunter sat on Burisma’s board, the State Department classified it as a corrupt organization, and his father, then-Vice President Joe Biden, handled US–Ukraine relations.
Hunter currently is under federal investigation for tax fraud, failure to register as a foreign lobbyist and money laundering.
Trump turned to Putin for information because he said that Americans “won’t get the answer from Ukraine.”
Despite asking Putin for help in investigating the Biden family’s corruption, Trump said he had a firmer stance toward Russia during his presidency than Biden has had.
“I’m the best thing that ever happened to NATO, because I made them pay. So NATO has plenty of money now,” Trump said.
“And by the way, that’s another, I’m the one who brought up Nord Stream 2,” he continued. “… I’m the one that blocked it. I terminated it. They weren’t gonna have it. [Biden] then opened it.”