Attorney General Todd Blanche said the Justice Department is not investigating the link between the Trump family and the Russian businessman who reportedly helped finance Donald Trump Jr.’s recent Bahamas wedding.
Reporters questioned Blanche at a Tuesday news conference a day after reporting showed that Umar Kremlev, president of the International Boxing Association and ally to Russian President Vladimir Putin, paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to rent a private island and bankroll a fireworks display for Trump Jr.’s wedding after-party in May.
“When you say, ‘am I investigating?’ — am I investigating what?” Blanche said. “And when you say this person is a friend of Putin, I’m not even sure if that’s true or not.”
Following ProPublica’s investigative report, Trump Jr. and wife Bettina Trump issued a joint statement on Instagram. The couple acknowledged the article but rejected concerns that Kremlev’s “generous wedding gift” had political or sinister motives.
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The findings reignited warnings from intelligence experts regarding foreign influence over President Donald Trump’s family, especially from Kremlin-linked oligarchs, who frequently use personal connections to secure back-channel access or political favors from powerful leaders.
“If I’m paying for your wedding, at some point, you’re going to owe me something,” retired FBI official Frank Montoya Jr. told ProPublica. “This should be unthinkable for the son of the president.”
The Justice Department has opened investigations into other presidential families in the past — notably Joe Biden’s son Hunter, whom Trump ordered the agency to investigate in 2018 over business ties to the Ukrainian energy company Burisma Holdings while his father was vice president. Investigators found no evidence of criminal wrongdoing or foreign influence in the Burisma probe, but they prosecuted Hunter Biden on unrelated weapons and tax offenses.
At the news conference, Blanche shrugged off concerns from reporters and said Trump and his son had already put the suspicions to bed. He reiterated that the elder Trump, and most other family members, are not acquainted with Kremlev, whom he described as Trump Jr.’s “very close friend.”
“All the relevant people involved, the president and his kids, have already addressed it,” Blanche said. “I don’t know this person either, so I don’t have any information about it beyond that.”
Democrats on the House Oversight Committee opened a probe Monday into Kremlev’s payments. The committee’s top Democrat, Rep. Robert Garcia of California, sent two letters to the White House on Monday calling the issue a “serious national security” concern.
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