by Eric Lendrum
In yet another revelation regarding the Biden family’s influence-peddling during Joe Biden’s vice presidential tenure, it has been reported that his son Hunter attained a Russian real estate deal worth $40 million back in 2012, while his father was still Vice President.
Breitbart reports that the deal was made between Hunter and Yelena Baturina, a Russian billionaire and the wife of the late former Mayor of Moscow, Yuri Luzhkov. The deal was made some time after Baturina had already paid a $3.5 million fee to Hunter’s real estate entity in exchange for access to the American business market. These details come from documents obtained by the Kazakhstani Initiative on Asset Recovery, an anti-corruption group, and were first reported by the Daily Mail on Monday.
The deal between Hunter and Baturina was intended to be part of a larger pooled real estate fund that would be allocated in long-term investments in the United States determined by Hunter to be profitable. Part of Hunter’s acquisition plan featured the acquisition of seven different office buildings across five different states: Texas, Colorado, New Mexico, Alabama, and Oklahoma.
These buildings would be purchased with $52 million in cash and another $160 million in leverage. To invest in 2.15 million square feet of office space overall, Hunter’s real estate fund Rosemont Realty had raised $69.7 million, $15 million of which was the firm’s own money. The $40 million from Baturina came from Inteco Management AG, a Swiss plastics and construction company that she owned. Her fortune through this company in particular ultimately made her the wealthiest woman in Russia in the year 2012.
“Rosemont Realty has entered into property acquisition contracts for $212,580,000,” said portions of Hunter’s prospectus, as revealed in screenshots given to the Kazakhstani Initiative on Asset Recovery. “The Managing Partnership will receive a total investment of $69,700,000 from the partners. The Managing General Partner will invest at least $15,000,000 of share capital on the same terms as all partners in the Investment Partnership.”
In 2014, after Baturina and her husband had been expelled to the United Kingdom due to a corruption probe by then-President Dmitry Medvedev, Baturina sent $3.5 million to Hunter in a wire transfer. When asked to explain the money transfer, Baturina simply described her relationship with Hunter as “a financial relationship,” with no specific reasoning given for the transaction.
At the same time as the Russian real estate deal, Hunter was still serving on the board of the Ukrainian energy company Burisma Holdings, earning $80,000 a month for an executive position that required little work, and despite Hunter having no previous experience in energy. When the company came under investigation for corruption by Ukraine’s then-Inspector General, Viktor Shokin, then-Vice President Joe Biden demanded that Ukraine’s president at the time, Petro Poroshenko, fire Shokin or else he would withhold $1 billion in foreign aid; Shokin was ultimately fired, and the investigation was dropped.
– – –
Eric Lendrum reports for American Greatness.
Photo “Yelena Baturina” by Pinskibob. CC BY-SA 3.0.
