President Trump says his son reimbursed Kremlev for afterparty
WASHINGTON — Sen. John Curtis, a Utah Republican, on Tuesday asked the Senate Judiciary Committee to investigate Donald Trump Jr. after reports that a Russian businessman connected to the Kremlin funded the president’s oldest son’s wedding afterparty in the Bahamas.
Curtis sent a letter to Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley (R., Iowa) and the panel’s top Democrat, Dick Durbin of Illinois, requesting a probe into what he called “the use of presidential family relationships for private financial benefit, preferential treatment, or access by domestic and foreign interests.” Curtis urged the committee to issue subpoenas to both Donald Trump Jr. and Hunter Biden, the son of former President Joe Biden, whose dealings in Ukraine have drawn GOP scrutiny for years.
“A toaster is a wedding gift. A private-island party paid for by a Putin-connected oligarch is something else,” Curtis said. “Republicans nearly wore out the subpoena machine investigating Hunter Biden’s foreign relationships. We should not unplug it now.”
The postwedding celebrations, held over two days on exclusive islands in the Bahamas, were paid for by Umar Kremlev, a Russian businessman with close ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin. ProPublica first reported that Kremlev paid for the events. President Trump said earlier this month that Donald Trump Jr. reimbursed Kremlev.
In addition to the afterparty, Curtis’s letter cited Trump Jr.’s “active promotion of family-backed cryptocurrency ventures, his continued pursuit of international real estate deals involving direct meetings with foreign heads of state, and his reported investments in defense contracting.”
The request comes as a small number of Republicans have publicly broken with President Trump in recent weeks, on issues ranging from the war in Iran and energy prices to immigration policy. Curtis, who is next up for reelection in 2030, has been one of the most outspoken GOP critics of the afterparty gift, referring earlier this month to the arrangement as “corruption.”
Representatives for Grassley and Durbin didn’t immediately comment. Spokesmen for Donald Trump Jr. and Joe Biden didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment, and Hunter Biden didn’t immediately comment.
A Judiciary Committee representative acknowledged that the panel received the letter but suggested no immediate action, noting that hearing dates are extremely limited through the end of the year and that such hearings often take months of investigative background work.