You’ll hear this claim from a number of Trump apologists, and now you’re hearing it from Trump himself: That the wife of the mayor of Moscow paid “The Bidens” $3.5 million for some unknown reason.
To be blunt, it’s all BS. The background: Elena Baturina, a successful businesswoman and the widow of a former Moscow mayor, sent a $3.5 million payment to a management company called Rosemont Seneca Thornton in 2014. In 2004, a decade prior, Hunter Biden was the founding partner of an investment company named Rosemont Seneca Partners.
See that? Rosemont Seneca Thornton vs. Rosemont Seneca Partners. Two different names. Two different companies. And Hunter Biden was only affiliated with the latter, not the former, which is the company that got the money from the Russian widow.
Now, to be fair, there are some links before the two businesses, namely that Christopher Heinz was a partner in both businesses. The name “Rosemont” is taken from the family’s estate near Pittsburgh.