Former President Donald Trump said Russian leader Vladimir Putin should “release” information on an alleged business deal involving Hunter Biden, President Joe Biden’s embattled son.
In a new interview Tuesday, Trump discussed an alleged $3.5 million wire transfer from Russian billionaire Elena Baturina to Hunter Biden’s investment firm that was outlined in a report by Senate Republicans made public ahead of the 2020 election.
“So now I would think Putin would know the answer to that,” Trump said on “Just the News” airing on Real America’s Voice network. “I think he should release it. I think we should know that answer.”
Hunter Biden is facing a federal tax probe, with a grand jury convened in Delaware.
On Monday it was revealed that Hunter received a $142,000 plug-in hybrid sports car from a Kazakhstani banking oligarch in 2014. His infamous laptop was entered into the Congressional record on Tuesday.
Trump’s comments on Putin came as the Russian president has been sanctioned and ostracized by the West for his continued assault on Ukraine. In a clip of the interview, Trump references Baturina, widow of former Moscow Mayor Yury Luzhkov.
President Biden this week said he wasn’t “walking back” comments that Putin should be removed from power due to the invasion.
“I wasn’t then, nor am I now, articulating a policy change,” Biden said. “I was expressing the moral outrage that I feel and I make no apologies for it.”
Trump ally Sen. Lindsay Graham (R-SC) had called for the Russian president’s assassination in controversial comments in the early days of the invasion.
Trump has condemned the invasion but had fielded some criticism for calling Putin “savvy” and “smart” as the Russian leader amassed troops along the Ukraine border in preparation for the invasion.
During his first campaign for president in 2016, Trump had called on Russia to release emails from his Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton.
“I think you would probably be rewarded mightily by our press,” Trump said at the time.
In 2019, he was impeached but later acquitted for asking Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky to announce an investigation into Joe Biden, who was expected to challenge him in the 2020 election.