One of my most un-woke opinions is that Don Trump Jr. is sad and pitiful. He’s obviously a lot of other things too – he’s a tacky grifter who is a big part of the destruction of America, he’s a sycophantic, idiotic yes-man to his father, he’s a plastic-surgery-obsessed chud. And on and on. But mostly, Don just bums me out. I wince whenever I see anything about him. Well, Don got married about four months ago. He married “Palm Beach socialite Bettina Anderson” in the Bahamas. His father did not bother to attend the wedding. Neither did Don’s half-brother Barron. Neither did Melania, for what it’s worth (lmao). Still, Don’s other siblings were there, and he must have paid for a few dozen friends to show up. It was an intimate wedding with about 50 people, all told. And even though Don has grifted a net worth of something like $300 million, he did not pay for his own wedding. Which is just plain tacky, in general. But it went from “tacky” to “crazy espionage/useful idiot payoff” because of who paid for the wedding: a Russian oligarch close to Vladimir Putin. Shocked that Don didn’t just invite Putin outright?
On May 24, Donald Trump Jr. was celebrating in the Bahamas, as scantily clad dancers in stilettos and sailor caps performed for him and his guests. It was the last night of his wedding, a lavish, three-day party held across a pair of ultra-exclusive private islands. A five-tier funfetti cake had been airlifted in from Florida, and helicopters and seaplanes descended on the islands before guests settled into their oceanfront villas. That night on the beach, Trump Jr. lifted his bride into the air while fireworks launched from a barge over the sea.
“It was everything we dreamed of and more,” his wife later wrote on Instagram.
That dream was heavily funded by a secret benefactor: Umar Kremlev, a Russian oligarch close to President Vladimir Putin.
Kremlev footed the bill for hundreds of thousands of dollars of wedding expenses, according to records reviewed by ProPublica and interviews with three people familiar with the event. The oligarch paid to rent out one of the private islands, where a reception was held and where guests slept. He also covered other big-ticket items, like the fireworks show, and his team helped plan the event. Kremlev is the head of the International Boxing Association, a scandal-plagued sports group that has been financed by the Russian state-owned energy giant Gazprom. The wedding payments came from an IBA-affiliated entity in Dubai that the boxing association uses for financial transactions.
The guest list numbered around 50. It included Trump Jr.’s brother-in-law Jared Kushner, Eric Trump — and Kremlev, an imposing man with a shaved head who speaks limited English. The oligarch was part of a large group whose presence puzzled other attendees. They sometimes stood off by themselves, speaking Russian.
Kremlev’s previously unreported relationship with Trump Jr. represents an extraordinary development: a member of Putin’s circle financially supporting the president’s son and gaining intimate access to the Trump family. For a decade, Putin’s government, regarded as a chief adversary of the U.S., has been accused of efforts to influence American elections. Attempts by Russia to make inroads with the Trumps before the 2016 election exploded into controversy that dogged much of the president’s first term. National security experts expressed alarm at Trump Jr. accepting the oligarch’s largesse, saying it raised an urgent question: What motivated Kremlev to spend a fortune cultivating the connection?
“If I’m paying for your wedding, at some point, you’re going to owe me something,” said Frank Montoya Jr., a retired career FBI official who held senior counterintelligence roles. Oligarchs like Kremlev often act in coordination with the Russian government. While it’s unclear if that happened here, Trump Jr. put himself in a precarious position, Montoya said. “This should be unthinkable for the son of the president. End of story.”
Holden Triplett, who served as Trump’s counterintelligence director on the National Security Council during his first term, said Russian intelligence frequently seeks to build ties with U.S. government officials and their family members. “Money is a tried-and-true method to gain access,” said Triplett, who also worked for the FBI in Moscow.
It’s not clear why Kremlev helped pay for Trump Jr.’s wedding. The men appear to have met only recently. Public reporting suggests Trump Jr. could have afforded it himself, with Forbes recently estimating his net worth at roughly $300 million.
In response to detailed questions, a spokesperson for Trump Jr. did not dispute the wedding payments from Kremlev. “Umar is a personal friend of Don,” he said. The spokesman said that Kremlev is “not someone he has a business relationship with” and that the men met through a mutual friend in the hunting world and bonded over their love of boxing and the outdoors.
A spokesperson for Trump Jr.’s brother Eric said of Kremlev: “Eric has absolutely no clue who this person is, nor has never heard his name.”
In a statement, Kremlev’s press office said, “Mr. Kremlev and Mr. Trump Jr have a friendly relationship” and they first met “a couple of years ago.”
“…The men met through a mutual friend in the hunting world and bonded over their love of boxing and the outdoors….” I’ll bet. Like, this really is Spycraft for Dummies. In the “glory days” of the Cold War or even the War on Terror, it was much more difficult for foreign adversaries to finesse a meeting with their target or persuade their useful idiots. These days, all you have to do is invite Donny Dipsh-t to a hunting party and pay for his Bahamas wedding and he’s all yours. John le Carre is turning over in his grave. And this is the Trump administration writ large too – the grift is out in the open. No one is hiding anything. No one is ashamed.
Photos of Don Trump Jr’s Instagram and Ivanka Trump’s Instagram.
