Republican Senator John Curtis of Utah has called for an investigation into Donald Trump Jr. following reports that Kremlin-linked Russian businessman Umar Kremlyov financed a party to mark his wedding.
This was reported by The Wall Street Journal.
John Curtis sent a letter to the leaders of the Senate Judiciary Committee asking them to investigate the “use of the President’s family connections to obtain private financial gain, preferential treatment, or access from domestic and foreign interests”. He urged the committee to subpoena Donald Trump Jr., as well as Hunter Biden, the son of former President Joe Biden, who from 2014 to 2019 served on the board of the Ukrainian gas extraction company Burisma, owned by Mykola Zlochevskyy, Ukraine’s former environment minister under Yanukovych.
“A toaster is a wedding present. A party on a private island paid for by an oligarch linked to Putin is something else entirely,” Curtis said.
In his letter, the senator also mentioned “Trump Jr.’s active promotion of family-backed cryptocurrency projects, his subsequent efforts to strike international real-estate deals, including direct meetings with foreign heads of state, as well as his alleged investments in defence contracts”.
Asked about testimony, Hunter Biden said in a statement to the WSJ: “I have already given more than seven hours of sworn testimony… I will sit next to Don Jr. and testify any time, anywhere. Eric and Jared (Trump’s middle son and his son-in-law Jared Kushner) can join us too.”
Earlier, an investigation into the circumstances surrounding the gift to Trump’s son was launched by the House of Representatives’ investigative committee of the US Congress. The committee’s top Democrat, Robert Garcia, said he had contacted White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles demanding all documents and records of conversations between the presidential administration and the head of state’s son about Kremlyov.
On 14 September, ProPublica reported that the post-wedding celebrations for Donald Trump Jr. and his wife, which lasted two days on exclusive islands in the Bahamas, were paid for by Umar Kremlyov, a Russian businessman closely linked to Putin’s inner circle.
On 19 September, Donald Trump said that his son had allegedly repaid the money that Russian oligarch Umar Kremlyov spent on the party to celebrate his marriage.