Senator John Curtis of Utah is voicing concern after a Russian oligarch paid for Donald Trump Jr.’s lavish wedding celebration.
A freshman Republican senator blindsided his colleagues this week with a call to investigate Donald Trump Jr. after a Russian oligarch paid for his lavish wedding celebration.
Senator John Curtis of Utah on Tuesday morning released a letter he sent to party leaders on the Senate Judiciary Committee expressing concern over the wedding celebration, which Trump Jr. and his wife have both acknowledged was paid for by the oligarch, who has ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin. Curtis’s letter raised alarms over the gift in light of Trump Jr.’s business dealings, which include his family’s cryptocurrency ventures and serving as an adviser to major prediction markets who hope to receive favorable regulation from the executive branch.
“These reports raise legitimate questions about foreign access to members of a sitting president’s family and whether such relationships can create actual or perceived expectations of favorable treatment,” Curtis wrote.
Likewise, Curtis called out Hunter Biden, the son of former President Joe Biden whom Republicans in the House of Representatives investigated at length for allegedly using his father’s influence for financial success in his business ventures. The Utah senator called on the committee to subpoena both first sons.
“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,” the letter read. “Nor should congressional oversight begin and end when control of the White House changes hands.”
The letter represents a rare example of a sitting Republican member of Congress issuing a public rebuke of the Trump family. It also forces Republicans to contend with alleged corruption by the president’s family — which Democrats have highlighted in their campaign messaging — less than two months out from the midterm elections.
When the story first broke last week, Republicans in both chambers who spoke to National Review said they had not heard about the controversy. This week, the letter has made sure they have, and it came as a surprise to the Senate GOP conference. When senators arrived at the Capitol Tuesday night for their first votes of the week, most of them, including Judiciary Committee Chairman Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa, had not yet read the letter.
Curtis, who does not sit on the Judiciary Committee, defended his choice to bring his concerns into the public eye rather than push back privately.
“I think Americans want to know,” Curtis told NR. “Back home, they talk about affordability, and then they talk about corruption … I think it is important that I represent them, and part of representing them is asking the questions.”
For his part, Grassley is not giving priority to Curtis’s call, despite the media attention it has garnered.
“We’re going to just pursue this as we would any inquiry,” he told reporters. “I also want to remember that for Senator Curtis or any other senator, they don’t have to wait for a committee to do investigating. They can do it on their own as well.”
Republican senators on the Judiciary Committee were split on whether they wanted to pursue the investigation. Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri argued that voters were concerned with other issues.
“What they send us here to do is to help them,” Hawley told reporters. “Their gas is too high, diesel is too high, their healthcare costs are too high, and Congress could do something about all those things. So far, this Congress has not. My advice would be: we’d better do that. We’d better do it real fast.”
But Senators John Cornyn of Texas and Thom Tillis of North Carolina, both of whom had their political careers ended by President Donald Trump, backed Curtis’s effort or knocked Trump Jr. for accepting the gift.
“I would support Senator Curtis’s request,” Cornyn said.
Tillis has stopped short of explicitly backing a subpoena of Trump Jr. but has said he would not object to the committee conducting an investigation.
“Having a Russian oligarch subsidize a multimillionaire’s wedding — it’s dumb,” he told NR. “Even if it doesn’t violate any law, it violates any law of common sense that I’ve ever known.”
Tillis also indicated that lawmakers in both parties were becoming more willing to buck a president whom they generally supported.
“People have to be comfortable with speaking truth to the other branch, and I think we’re seeing a little bit more of that,” he said. “It’s healthy. I wish we’d seen it sooner.”
Meanwhile, Democrats, especially Dick Durbin, the top Democrat on Judiciary, welcomed Curtis’s request to subpoena Trump Jr.
“It was a great letter,” Durbin told NR. “I support him. I think we ought to have an investigation into Donald Trump Jr.”
Asked whether he would also want to investigate Hunter Biden, as Curtis called for in his letter, Durbin noted that Biden, hours after the letter’s release, said he would be up for testifying.
“Remember, he’s already sat through a deposition,” Durbin said. “Something that Mr. Trump Jr. has not [done].”