Joe’s mum on Hunter ‘comrades’
Punts sanctions queries
President Biden’s top spokesperson refused to comment Monday on why two Russian billionaires associated with First Son Hunter Biden have escaped US sanctions over the yearold war in Ukraine.
The Post asked press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre for an explanation after reporting fresh details last week on the association between the Biden family and oligarchs Vladimir Yevtushenkov and Yelena Baturina.
“Could [you] share the reason why President Biden hasn’t sanctioned the Russian billionaires Vladimir Yevtushenkov and Yelena Baturina?” The Post asked Jean-Pierre.
“How is he handling the conflict of interest there given his son was a business associate of these two people? And can you confirm that, as sitting vice president, he dined with Baturina in Georgetown?”
“I’m just not speaking to anything that’s related to his son from here,” Jean-Pierre said, adding: “If you want to ask a question about Hunter Biden specifically, I would refer you to his family. And as it relates to any sanctions, I’m not speaking to individual persons from Russia.”
Yevtushenkov and Baturina partnered with Hunter Biden while searching for US property investments while Joe Biden was vice president, according to communications from Hunter Biden’s abandoned laptop and witnesses who spoke with The Post.
Yevtushenkov allegedly expressed interest in courting the Bidens for reciprocal “favors” and Baturina allegedly dined in 2015 with thenVice President Biden and a group including other Hunter associates from Ukraine and Kazakhstan.
“I think it’s very fishy,” a source with firsthand knowledge of the relationship between Hunter and Yevtushenkov told The Post — noting that the oligarch is sanctioned by the UK and Australia but not by the US.
“I think he should be sanctioned,” Michael McFaul, a former US ambassador to Russia under President Barack Obama, told The Post last week. “I don’t understand why he has not been.”
Yevtushenko declined to comment though his Sistema business empire. Baturina did not respond to a request for comment.