Trump urges Russia to release dirt on Hunter Biden now that 'Putin is not exactly a fan of our country'

Former President Donald Trump appears to have given up on Ukraine releasing dirt on Hunter Biden, President Biden's sole living son — an effort that got him impeached (though not convicted) in 2019 after it emerged he was withholding U.S. military assistance to Ukraine to get such information.

So now he wants Russian President Vladimir Putin to unearth dirt on the Bidens. "I think Putin now would be willing to probably" release it, "as long as Putin is not exactly a fan of our country," he told John Solomon on Real America's Voice in an interview broadcast Tuesday. Putin is not "a fan" of the U.S. right now, of course, because the Biden administration is arming Ukraine in its unexpectedly strong defense against Putin's invasion.

Russian state TV, very likely trolling or baiting the U.S. media, is happy to oblige Trump. One host, Evgeny Popov, called for Russia to encourage "regime" change in the U.S. "and to again help our partner Trump to become president."

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And "last Thursday, Russia's Defense Ministry released a colorful diagram, purporting to demonstrate that President Joe Biden's son Hunter is secretly bankrolling the Pentagon's biolabs in Ukraine," Julia Davis reports at The Daily Beast. "The allegation was preposterous and was squeamishly avoided by the responsible mainstream media, but Tucker Carlson immediately latched on to it."

"Kremlin propagandists see the Hunter biolab material as just the right kind of toxic waste that can bury his father's chances of re-election in 2024," Davis writes. Carlson's and Trump's translated comments appear frequently on Russian state TV.

Hunter Biden is still under investigation for tax issues by a Delaware federal prosecutor President Biden declined to replace from the Trump administration, The Wall Street Journal reports. But Trump's claim that Elena Baturina, a wealthy Russian businesswoman married to late Moscow mayor Yuri Luzhvov gave Hunter Biden $3.5 million stems from a controversial Senate Republican report released in September 2020 that said Baturina paid a $3.5 million "consultancy" fee in 2014 to a firm called Rosemont Seneca Thornton, which may or may not have ties to Rosemont Seneca Advisors, a company Hunter Biden co-founded and led.

Hunter Biden denies having an stake in Rosemont Seneca Thornton, and "the GOP report does not support the allegation that Hunter Biden personally accepted money from Baturina," Politico reports. Curiously, "Trump himself sought to do business with Luzhkov's government in the late 1990s."

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Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.