KVIG Informative

A Republican senator has asked the Senate Judiciary Committee to subpoena the president’s eldest son, a rare break from a party that has mostly stayed out of the Trump family’s business dealings.

Sen. John Curtis, R-Utah, sent a letter dated September 21 to Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley and ranking member Dick Durbin asking the panel to investigate the use of presidential family relationships for private financial benefit, preferential treatment or access by domestic and foreign interests. Curtis, a freshman who does not sit on the committee, urged it to subpoena Donald Trump Jr. and Hunter Biden. His request did not accuse either man of wrongdoing, KUTV reported. It asked the committee to determine whether ethics, disclosure or anti-corruption laws apply and whether reforms are needed.

The request followed a ProPublica report that Umar Kremlev, a Russian oligarch with close ties to Vladimir Putin, helped pay for a private island rental and a fireworks show at the celebration after Trump Jr.’s wedding to Bettina Anderson in the Bahamas. Trump Jr. and Anderson confirmed Kremlev funded parts of the celebration and defended accepting it, CNN reported. The president, who did not attend the wedding, defended Kremlev’s involvement and said the money would be repaid, according to the Associated Press. Curtis called the gift corruption in a social media video.

Durbin said he would support the request. Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, who lost his primary this year after Trump endorsed his opponent, said he would too. Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., said he would not oppose it if Grassley backed it, and Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, said she was glad Curtis spoke up. Sen. Bernie Moreno, R-Ohio, dismissed the idea, writing that subpoenas of presidential family members must clear a high bar. Grassley said he would sit down with staff and take the requests seriously but could not say when a hearing might happen. A committee spokesperson said a hearing before the end of the year would be difficult given the Senate’s limited schedule, according to the Associated Press.

The family’s crypto ventures are part of the backdrop. A Reuters investigation published June 9 found the Trump family earned at least $2.3 billion from four ventures between November 2024 and April 2026: World Liberty Financial, the $TRUMP meme coin, American Bitcoin and ALT5 Sigma, now called AI Financial. More than a million outside investors lost about the same amount, in realized and unrealized losses, by April 30, Reuters reported. World Liberty Financial was the largest source, and Reuters found its terms direct 75% of governance-token sale revenue to a Trump-controlled entity.

Trump’s annual financial disclosure, released June 30 by the Office of Government Ethics, showed his companies received almost $800 million from World Liberty Financial, Reuters reported. The Reuters investigation did not allege criminal wrongdoing. It reported that eight government ethics experts described the arrangement as a conflict of interest unlike any in modern presidential history.

The White House has said neither the president nor his family has engaged in or will engage in conflicts of interest. Richard Painter, the chief White House ethics lawyer under President George W. Bush, has said there is no precedent since the Civil War for the current level of conflict between a president’s investments and his office. He told NPR that federal conflict-of-interest laws would bar other executive branch officials from similar actions.

Any congressional committee can open an investigation at any time. The Judiciary Committee has done it before to both men Curtis named. Grassley led a 2017 inquiry into the Trump campaign’s ties to Russia that included a 2016 meeting Trump Jr. held with Russians, and the panel has investigated Hunter Biden more than once, according to the Associated Press.