Oligarch Wedding

Republican Sen. John Curtis wants the Judiciary Committee to investigate Donald Trump Jr. over a Russian oligarch's payment for his Bahamas wedding celebration.

Umar Kremlev covered the costs. The president of the International Boxing Association and a close Putin associate paid for a private island and a fireworks display at the May wedding of Trump Jr. and Bettina Anderson, according to a ProPublica investigation cited by the Guardian and Newsweek. Kremlev had traveled to China with a delegation accompanying Putin in the days before the ceremony, Newsweek reported.

Curtis, of Utah, sent a letter Monday to Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley and ranking Democrat Dick Durbin, NBC News reported. He asked the panel to subpoena Trump Jr. over his business dealings, foreign relationships and gifts, and he wants Hunter Biden subpoenaed on the same terms. Unanswered questions about foreign access to a president's family could create "national security vulnerabilities," Curtis told the committee, according to Newsweek.

He drew a direct line to the years Republicans spent investigating Hunter Biden's foreign business ties, an effort that produced a critical House report but never reached impeachment articles, the Guardian reported. "A toaster is a wedding gift. A private-island party paid for by a Putin-connected oligarch is something else," Curtis wrote in a social media post, according to the Guardian and NBC News.

Trump has defended the arrangement. In the Oval Office, he told reporters that hosting a wedding party as a gift is common, and said he believed his son had already paid Kremlev back, the Guardian and Newsweek reported. Trump Jr. and Anderson called Kremlev's hosting "an extraordinarily generous wedding gift from a friend" in a joint Instagram post, NBC News reported.

Durbin backed Curtis's request. Ignoring the matter, he warned, risked making the committee "complicit in a coverup," NBC News reported. Grassley said Tuesday he had not yet read the letter. Hearing dates are limited through the end of the year, a committee spokesperson told NBC News.

Hunter Biden welcomed the idea of testifying. "I say bring it on," he wrote on X, according to NBC News. "I'll sit next to Don Jr. and testify any time, any place."