House Majority Whip Tom Emmer (R-MN) lashed out at Republican senators pushing to investigate President Donald Trump’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., over his ties to a Russian oligarch.
Emmer objected in a post on X on Wednesday, targeting senators who want Congress to examine Trump Jr.’s dealings with the oligarch.
Umar Kremlev, the oligarch who leads the International Boxing Association, paid hundreds of thousands of dollars for Trump Jr.’s wedding celebrations in the Bahamas in May, ProPublica reported this month.
“Don Jr is a private citizen and businessman so this unwarranted attack will go nowhere,” Emmer wrote. “Now just mere days before leaving town, some senators want to waste time creating a new Russia hoax and attacking Don Jr.”
“The Senate is still sitting on the SAVE America Act, reconciliation 3.0, Clarity Act, and hundreds of good conservative House bills that need to be passed,” Emmer argued.
“This partisan distraction is NOT what the American people voted for!” he insisted.
The push began with one of Emmer’s fellow Republicans, Sen. John Curtis (R-UT), who on Tuesday sent the Senate Judiciary Committee a three-page letter urging it to subpoena Trump Jr., The New York Times reported.
“A toaster is a wedding gift,” Curtis wrote in a social media post. “A private-island party paid for by a Putin-connected oligarch is something else.”
“Republicans nearly wore out the subpoena machine investigating Hunter Biden’s foreign relationships,” Curtis continued. “We should not unplug it now.”
Curtis also urged the committee to take another look at Hunter Biden, the son of former President Joe Biden.
“I say bring it on,” Hunter Biden wrote on X Tuesday.
“I’ll sit next to Don Jr. and testify any time, any place. Eric and Jared can join us too,” he added, referring to Trump Jr.’s brother, Eric Trump, and brother-in-law, Jared Kushner.
Emmer cheered a House investigation of Hunter Biden in January 2024, when he wrote on X that House Republicans had “finally secured a deposition date” for him.
“This is a HUGE win in the @HouseGOP’s mission to provide transparency and accountability for the American people,” Emmer wrote at the time.
Since Curtis’s letter, three more Republican senators, including two Judiciary Committee members, have backed an investigation, the Daily Beast reported, citing The Associated Press. Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) said the wedding events showed “colossally bad judgment at best.”
“I would support Sen. Curtis’s request,” Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) said, according to the outlet.
“It doesn’t make any difference if you’re Republican or Democrat, if you’re Trump or you’re Biden,” said Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), who does not sit on the committee.
Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA), who chairs the Judiciary Committee, said Tuesday that he would take Curtis’s request seriously but such requests take time, the Times reported.
“If you were going to ask me when you’re going to have a hearing, there’s no way I could answer that today,” Grassley said.
Trump Jr. holds no government job, but ProPublica noted reports that he helped vet Cabinet picks for his father’s second term. The Wall Street Journal called him the president’s “most essential political adviser.”
Kremlev is close to Russian President Vladimir Putin, who gave him a state honor in April, ProPublica reported. His payments covered the rental of a private island and a fireworks show, according to the outlet. After the president’s second inauguration, Kremlev sent him an open letter seeking help in his boxing group’s dispute with the International Olympic Committee.
“It was an extraordinarily generous wedding gift from a friend,” Trump Jr. and his wife, Bettina Trump, said in an Instagram statement, according to ProPublica.
“I hear he’s paid him back,” the president told reporters in the Oval Office on Sept. 19, referring to his son and Kremlev, the Times reported.
Trump Jr.’s camp has not confirmed he repaid Kremlev, according to the Daily Beast.
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