Former President Donald Trump has called on Russia’s Vladimir Putin to release any information on supposedly illicit business deals by President Joe Biden’s son.

In an interview published on Tuesday by the “Just the News” show on the right-wing Real America’s Voice network, Trump said that Putin should share the details of any business activities in Russia of Hunter Biden. The ex-president, referring to findings of a controversial report by Senate Republicans into the Biden family published in September 2020, said that Hunter received millions from the wife of former Moscow Mayor Yury Luzhkov in the past.

“She gave him $3.5 million so now I would think Putin would know the answer to that. I think he should release it,” Trump said in the interview, conducted at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida. “I think we should know that answer.”

Trump has faced repeated criticism for his apparent affinity for Putin and his willingness to solicit political help from foreign powers. Calling on Putin for help in proving the alleged crimes of Hunter Biden in many ways resembled his June 2016 request for Russia to release the emails of his then-Democratic rival Hillary Clinton during his first run for the White House.

It also had echoes of his request in July 2019 to Ukraine’s President Volodomyr Zelensky to investigate Hunter Biden for his work with Ukrainian gas giant Burisma.

Trump’s interviewer, John Solomon, also featured in this scandal. Solomon hade made unverified allegations in early 2019 that accused Joe Biden of pushing out a disgraced Ukrainian prosecutor by lobbying Ukraine’s government. Solomon left The Hill in September 2019 after the outlet identified flaws in his columns as well as his failure to disclose that two of his sources were serving as his personal attorneys.

But Trump has also been revealed to have sought business deals with Luzhkov in the 1990s and was pursuing a Trump Tower project in Moscow up until 2016.

The war in Ukraine has prompted many Republicans to break from Trump, particularly after he described Putin’s annexation of two Ukrainian separatist statelets as "genius." Trump backtracked slightly by describing the war as a “Holocaust” against Ukraine, but on Monday assailed Joe Biden for suggesting Putin should be removed from power.

"When you put him into a corner and talk the way you are talking, they are almost giving him an incentive" to use nuclear weapons, Trump told Newsmax.

Trump’s remarks come one day after the Wall Street Journal reported that a federal tax investigation into Hunter Biden is proceeding. According to the report, federal prosecutors are seeking additional information and testimony before a grand jury.

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