Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden on Tuesday claimed a Senate report was wrong when it said his son received millions of dollars from a Russian.
“Why is it, just out of curiosity, the mayor of Moscow’s wife gave your son three-and-a-half million dollars. What did he do to deserve it?” President Donald Trump asked Biden, referring to Hunter Biden.
“That’s not true. None of that is true,” Biden said.
“He didn’t get three-and-a-half million dollars, Joe?” Trump continued.
“That’s not true,” Biden said. “Totally discredited. Look, my son did nothing wrong at Burisma.”
Baturina wired $3.5 million to a Rosemont Seneca Thornton bank account on Feb. 14, 2014, according to the report. Rosemont Seneca is an investment firm co-founded by Hunter Biden.
Trump later raised the issue again, saying, “Three and a half million, Joe. Why did he deserve three and a half million from Moscow?”
“That is simply not true,” Biden said. “He didn’t.”
The former vice president continued, saying, “We want to talk about families and ethics—I don’t want to do that. His family, we could talk about all night. His family—”
“My family lost a fortune by coming down and helping us with government,” Trump interrupted. “They’re right here. Every single one of them lost a fortune.”
Trump “doesn’t want to talk about what you need,” Biden told audience members, before he for a fourth time denied that his son received the payment from Baturina.
Trump then drew attention to how Biden, while still vice president, threatened to withhold $1 billion from Ukraine unless a prosecutor probing his son’s employer, Ukraine-based Burisma Holdings, was ousted.
Biden again said what Trump was saying wasn’t true.
“And I had gotten a commitment from [then-Ukrainian President Petro] Poroshenko and from [then-Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy] Yatsenyuk that they would take action against the state prosecutor. And they didn’t,” Biden said.
“So they said they had—they were walking out to a press conference. I said, nah, I’m not going to—or, we’re not going to give you the billion dollars. They said, you have no authority. You’re not the president. The president said—I said, call him.
“I said, I’m telling you, you’re not getting the billion dollars. I said, you’re not getting the billion. I’m going to be leaving here in, I think it was about six hours. I looked at them and said I’m leaving in six hours. If the prosecutor is not fired, you’re not getting the money. Well, son of a [expletive]. He got fired. And they put in place someone who was solid at the time.”
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