WASHINGTON – A Republican senator formally demanded on Tuesday that the Senate Judiciary Committee subpoena Donald Trump Jr., citing a ProPublica investigation that revealed a Russian oligarch with close ties to the Kremlin had secretly paid hundreds of thousands of dollars for the president’s son’s three-day wedding celebration in the Bahamas.
Senator John Curtis of Utah sent a letter to Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley asking the committee to compel testimony not only from Trump Jr. but also from Hunter Biden, placing the president’s eldest son in the same investigative framework Republicans had deployed against his Democratic predecessor’s family for years. Curtis acted the same day President Donald Trump was addressing world leaders at the United Nations General Assembly in New York.
The wedding in question took place in May. Umar Kremlev, the Russian-born president of the International Boxing Association, paid for the rental of a private island and a fireworks display. The funds moved through a Dubai-based entity affiliated with the IBA, according to the ProPublica reporting. About 50 guests attended, among them Jared Kushner. The celebration cost hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Kremlev’s leadership of the International Boxing Association has been controversial for years. The International Olympic Committee removed the IBA’s status as Olympic boxing’s governing body before the Paris 2024 Games, citing governance failures during his tenure.
His close relationship with the Russian government has also drawn scrutiny, as has the IBA’s sponsorship agreement with Gazprom, which Western sports organizations have repeatedly criticized.
Trump Jr.’s spokeswoman said Kremlev was a “personal friend of Don” and that the arrangement had nothing to do with any business relationship. Bettina Trump, Trump Jr.’s wife, described Kremlev on social media as a “dear friend” who “very generously hosted two incredible nights of celebrations for us AFTER our wedding.” Donald Trump, who did not attend the celebration, said publicly that the money would be repaid.
“Republicans nearly wore out the subpoena machine investigating Hunter Biden’s foreign relationships,” Curtis wrote. “We should not unplug it now.”
The profile of the man at the center of the payments reinforced the concern. Kremlev had traveled to China as part of a delegation accompanying Vladimir Putin just weeks before the Bahamas festivities, a detail ProPublica surfaced and that Curtis cited directly in his letter. The senator asked the committee to examine Trump Jr.’s business dealings, his relationships with foreign individuals and entities, and any gifts or other benefits he had received, language that closely mirrors the terms Republicans used when building their investigative case against Biden’s son.
Curtis extended his concerns beyond the Kremlev payments alone. He cited Trump Jr.’s promotion of family-backed cryptocurrency ventures, investments in foreign real estate, and financial stakes in defense contractors as additional areas warranting congressional scrutiny. The argument was structural: if financial proximity to foreign power justified years of hearings under a Democratic president, the Republican majority should not require a different threshold now.
The Democratic side moved faster than Curtis. Representative Robert Garcia of California sent letters to both the White House and Trump Jr. on Monday, citing what he called “serious national security and public corruption concerns.” CBS News reported the full terms of Curtis’s letter on Tuesday. But the weight of the Utah senator’s intervention derived precisely from its origin. It came from a Republican, invoking Republican standards, in a letter addressed to a Republican committee chairman. Any refusal to act would be answered with a question about what had changed between the treatment of one president’s family and the treatment of the other’s.
“The country should not have to accept one standard for the family of a Republican president and another for the family of a Democratic president,” Curtis wrote.
Whether Grassley will act is the question the letter leaves unresolved. The Senate Judiciary Committee has shown no appetite since January for investigations that approach the Trump family directly, and a subpoena requires the committee’s Republican majority to agree. Curtis has no power to compel that agreement. He set no deadline and proposed no hearing dates, leaving the next move entirely with Grassley.
The bipartisan Russia sanctions package signed into law earlier this month represented shared recognition that financial ties between American figures and Putin’s inner circle require scrutiny. Curtis is now testing whether that recognition extends to the family of the sitting president.
That question has no answer yet. It may not get one.
