Last week, ProPublica published a report on how Umar Kremlev, a weird Russian oligarch/biker/boxer person who does not really even speak English, blew several hundred thousand dollars on a post-wedding party for Donald Trump Jr. and his new bride Bettina Anderson. You know, like you do for your casual acquaintances.
Admittedly, I thought this was one of those things that would be devastating for any other politician, but that would likely blow over once Donald Trump said it wasn’t a big deal and then went and did something even more disturbing himself. Because that’s usually how this works, right? Trump says something that’s obviously a big deal is not a big deal, then everyone around him parrots that and acts like anyone who continues to mention it or acts like it’s a big deal is being a ridiculous pedant, then he does something else and it’s Groundhog’s Day all over again.
That has not really happened with this one. Yes, Trump has said it’s not a big deal and even claimed that Don Jr. told him he was going to pay the dude back for the festivities (sure, maybe in political favors). Don and the latest Mrs. Trump even announced on Instagram that it, like, totally was not a big deal because they didn’t even originally plan to get married that weekend, they just had other stuff to do on the island. Two of those things just happened to be parties being thrown, for their wedding, in their honor, by their good pal Umar. Duh.
“Our dear friend Umar very generously hosted two incredible nights of celebrations for us AFTER our wedding,” they said, as if that wasn’t exactly what ProPublica had reported. “It was an extraordinarily generous wedding gift from a friend, and something for which we were and remain incredibly grateful.”
To be fair, it’s probably easier to be friends with Don Jr. if you can’t understand a word he is saying. Maybe it’s a Little Mermaid kind of thing where they can’t talk to one another but communicate through a primal connection and body language?
Surprisingly enough, not only has this not blown over, even as Trump has done 87 weird things since, including trying to ban the free press from the White House, but even a few Republicans have started questioning the wisdom of the son of the president letting a Putin-connected Russian oligarch throw him a few obscenely expensive post-wedding parties.
Republican Senator John Curtis (R-Utah) called on the Senate Judiciary Committee this week to investigate Junior’s ties to the Russian oligarch, as well as some of his other sketchy dealings.
[Q]uestions have arisen about the relationships of President Trump’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., with foreign business figures and the acceptance of significant gifts. These include a lavish wedding afterparty, on a private island, provided by Russian oligarch Umar Kremlev, who reportedly traveled to China as part of a delegation accompanying Vladimir Putin shortly before giving the gift.
These concerns are compounded by Donald 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.’ This pattern extends to his significant financial and advisory ties to prediction-market platforms® that depend on favorable federal regulatory decisions being considered by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.
In the tweet in which he shared the letter, he also wrote that “Republicans nearly wore out the subpoena machine investigating Hunter Biden’s foreign relationships. We should not unplug it now.”
Oh, you sweet summer Mormon.
But Curtis isn’t the only one. Now Senators John Cornyn and Thom Tillis have joined Curtis’s call. Those two men are on their way out, granted, but that makes three.
Also not so into this whole Russian oligarch sugar daddy thing? Ben Shapiro. Though I suspect that perhaps has more to do with him trying to find his footing in this brave new world in which his whole empire is imploding and livestreaming himself playing Fortnite for the first time just isn’t doing it for anyone. (No, that’s real, that happened.)
In response to the news, he said:
Okay. I have a lot of good friends. I’m not sure how many of those good friends are going to drop, you know, four hundred, five hundred thousand dollars for an elaborate post-wedding party. And also, I will admit, I do not have a lot of good friends with whom I cannot converse because they don’t speak my language. Right? Umar apparently speaks mostly Russian, and also, again, happens to be very, very close with Vladimir Putin.
So again, suspicion of corruption here is not totally unavailing. It’s not unwarranted. If you change the -- here’s my rule. If you change the name Donald Trump Jr. to Hunter Biden, would Republicans be screaming bloody murder about it? If the answer is yes, it is a bad thing. It is a not good thing.
He then went on to also criticize some of Junior’s other shady dealings.
Now again, none of this means that President Trump is the pro in any quid pro quo. Like Don Jr. is receiving a wedding gift, and therefore President Trump does something. But Don Jr., with this sort of stuff, does his dad a disservice. Just as it is a major disservice to his father's administration and to the Republican Party generally and to the country for World Liberty Financial, the crypto firm and its shaky assets, to be taking in hundreds of millions of dollars for what appears to be vaporware. It's not a service to the administration or to the American people when 1789 Capital, which is a firm in which he is invested, is getting government contracts with companies in which it is invested. Or tungsten mining in Kazakhstan, or rare earth companies in Brazil.
With Trump’s polling in the gutter and several of his compatriots jumping off the Trump Train, he may have also clocked that unquestioning loyalty and simping for Trump and his family may no longer be the way to go.
Media Matters also clocked that someone who called into the Megyn Kelly Wrap-Up Show — which is, very weirdly, a show on Sirius XM in which former Federalist culture editor and current Breaking Points cohost Emily Jashinsky recaps Megyn Kelly’s show that day and takes calls — was wondering why Kelly didn’t cover this story. Kelly, in case you were not aware, is currently on Trump’s shitlist, along with Tucker Carlson and Alex Jones and other former diehards. It’s not clear what Jashinsky’s deal is.
“I don't know. It seems weird that there's just — the silence is deafening. If Bill Clinton would have done this, I would have been outraged,” said a caller named George in Cleveland. “And we hear nothing.”
Now, this is weird. Because while Jashinsky admitted that corruption isn’t good, she also noted that it probably doesn’t matter to most Trump voters.
It looks like a clear conflict of interest. The entire Trump organization, from my perspective, is being run as a conflict of interest. You know, they have — they’re building resort in the UAE right now, the Trump organization, where you have Trump’s two sons. Donald Trump Jr. is on the boards — or is an adviser, I should say, to Polymarket and Kalshi as this administration is overseeing whether or not they should be regulated and how they should be regulated.
I mean, all of these are kind of glaring conflicts of interest. I think a lot of people heard when Trump said, “I know the system, I alone can fix it” in 2015/16. They said, “Yeah, these conflicts of interest might exist. They’re much less of a priority to me than fixing the country, and I’m sure a lot of you feel that way. I’m curious.”
Imagine hearing Trump say that and thinking it was not a completely batshit thing for a human being to say. Also it being 2026 and still believing that he was correct in that. What a world!
That being said, she’s probably right about that. I would argue that a lot of Trump supporters get a kick out of the corruption. I’ve seen a lot of folks on the MAGA-leaning message boards really kind of cheer for this sort of thing, more or less saying they love the Trumps and are thrilled for them to get whatever they can out of this presidency. Whatever makes them happy or brightens their day, you know? That’s the most important thing.
Quite frankly, the fact that any of them are getting it together to care about this, and the fact that the story is still in the news a full week later is fairly impressive.
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Meanwhile, Trump has been treating his namesake like a common Tiffany as of late, not even bothering to go to the wedding himself. I’d say maybe he knew about the Umar of it all in advance and wanted to avoid the appearance of corruption, but he probably cares even less about that than he does about his non-Ivanka children.
Who knows how long this will last, or if there is a possibility Trumpists could care even a tenth as much about this very real corruption as they have about, say, the insider trading they have, without evidence, spent years insisting Elizabeth Warren was involved in, despite the fact that she sponsors or cosponsors basically every bill banning the practice, probably to throw them off her scent! Or all of the pizza Satanism they think Hillary Clinton was involved with. Or all of Tom Hanks’s imaginary sex slaves. I don’t think there is.
However, I do think the fact that any of them feel remotely comfortable speculating that there may be something hinky about this is a sign that things aren’t going as well for Trump as he might believe.
[Twitter / Media Matters / Media Matters]
PREVIOUSLY ON WONKETTE!
Jr. is so proud of his perky little man-boobs. Look at him, pointing them right up and out toward the camera like that.
(Whatever, shallow observations on physical weirdness is not typically my bag, but this family is nothing but shallow and physical so it's fair game).
Rhetorical question #362: why does Jr look like the stupidest person in that picture, by far?
Also, that many yuppies in one place give me an itchy skin rash.