Then-Vice President Joe Biden allegedly told Russian billionaire Yelena Baturina and her husband, ex-Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov, to “be good to my boy” during a 2014 speaker phone conversation, according to a former Hunter Biden business associate who was interviewed Friday in the House impeachment inquiry.
Jason Galanis, a federal inmate who defrauded an American Indian tribe, said from his Alabama prison that on May 4, 2014, the sitting vice president called into a party in southern Brooklyn featuring his son, business partner Devon Archer and the Russian power couple.
“I was present when Hunter Biden called his father on a cell phone and put the call on speaker. Present for the call were Yelena Baturina, an investor in Rosemont projects, her husband Yuri Luzhkov, the former mayor of Moscow, and Devon Archer,” Galanis told congressional staff in testimony obtained by The Post.
“During the May 4th party, we were told to go to an area of the restaurant to gather because Hunter was going to call his father. Hunter called his father, said hello and ‘hold on, Pops,’ then put the call on speakerphone and said, ‘I am here with our friends I told you were coming to town, and we wanted to say hello.’
“The vice president said ‘hello’ and some pleasantries of ‘Hope you had safe travels,’ and then seemed like he wanted to bring the call to an end by saying, ‘OK then, you be good to my boy.’
“Hunter responded by saying, ‘Everything is good, and we are moving ahead.’ The vice president said something about ‘being helpful,’ and Hunter ended the call by saying that he was going to call his father later.”
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Galanis’ prison interview in Montgomery, Alabama — in which he also laid out new claims about Joe Biden’s alleged role in Chinese and Ukrainian business relationships.
The Post was able to find some corroboration of the convicted fraudster’s account.
An email from Hunter Biden’s abandoned laptop indicates he was due to attend a “Birthday Party @ Romanoff Restaurant” at 4 p.m. on May 4, 2014.
A source told The Post that it was a birthday party for the daughter of Alex Kotlarsky, who is believed to have recruited Archer and Hunter Biden to join the board of Ukrainian gas company Burisma Holdings, which infamously paid the then-second son a salary of up to $1 million per year beginning in April 2014, the month before the gathering.
The Post has not been able to confirm with other witnesses the precise quotes attributed to Joe Biden at the Brooklyn party or confirm that he called. --->READ MORE HERE
Two Russian billionaire pals of Hunter Biden were again spared from being hit by financial sanctions as President Biden announced his latest round of penalties on numerous Vladimir Putin-connected figures Friday, the Post has learned.
Though some 500 Russian oligarchs, companies and third-country sanctions evaders were hit, real estate developer Yelena Baturina and Vladimir Yevtushenkov again skated free of winding up on the list.
The White House did not immediately respond to The Post’s request for comment and has not offered explanation in the past as the pair dodged earlier rounds of sanctions.
The omissions have attracted the attention of House Republicans leading an impeachment inquiry into the president’s links to his relatives’ foreign business dealings.
Baturina, the widow of late Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov, built her $1.3 billion fortune through real estate and investments and allegedly dined twice with Hunter Biden and then-Vice President Joe Biden at DC’s Café Milano.
For reasons that remain unclear, she transferred $3.5 million in February 2014 to a firm controlled by Hunter and his associate Devon Archer.
Archer told Congress in July that he wasn’t sure of the reason for the transfer, but bank records show that more than $2.75 million of it was transferred to another corporate entity, which Archer said that he and Hunter Biden jointly owned.
Archer testified that Baturina separately invested nearly $120 million with his company Rosemont Realty, with which Hunter Biden also was briefly associated.
Baturina attended a dinner with then-Vice President Biden and Hunter’s Kazakhstani associates in spring 2014 at Café Milano, Archer told Congress. --->READ MORE HERE
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