Donald Trump Jr. and his wife, Bettina Trump, acknowledged Monday that a Russian oligarch with ties to President Vladimir Putin paid for their lavish Caribbean island post-wedding celebration in May.
ProPublica reported that Umar Kremlev paid hundreds of thousands of dollars in wedding-related expenses for the newlyweds and dozens of guests for festivities on a private island in the Bahamas that started a day after the ceremony. The festivities included a fireworks show, which ProPublica reported Kremlev also paid for.
“Our dear friend Umar very generously hosted two incredible nights of celebrations for us AFTER our wedding. It was an extraordinarily generous wedding gift from a friend, and something for which we were and remain incredibly grateful,” according to a post on Bettina Trump’s Instagram page, which was signed “Don & Bettina.”
It’s unclear why a member of the Trump family — who has made hundreds of millions of dollars during the first year of his father’s second term, some of it from cryptocurrency ventures that have involved foreign investments — would accept a gift from someone so closely aligned with Putin.
President Donald Trump, who did not attend the wedding or the celebration, told NBC News in a statement that it was “not a big deal.”
“I have no idea who Umar is, never heard of him, and he didn’t pay for Don and Bettina’s wedding, which took place at a totally different location, and on a different day from the wedding. It was an ‘afterparty’ given in their honor. Not a big deal! I was not present at the party,” the statement said.
The top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, Robert Garcia of California, said on X that Kremlev, who has been sanctioned by the Ukrainian government, “spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on the President’s son. What did he get in return? We need answers.”
On her Instagram page, Bettina Trump said the island vacation, which included other members of the Trump family, had “been planned well in advance as a fun weekend with friends. It was never intended to be our wedding weekend. When our original wedding plans changed, we simply decided to get married before it and arrived at an already planned weekend as newlyweds.”
She also insisted there was nothing untoward about Kremlev’s involvement.
“It’s unfortunate that something so personal and happy can be recast as something political or sinister simply because of who someone is or where they come from. Friendship doesn’t require a political motive. Generosity doesn’t automatically come with an agenda. And sometimes a wedding gift is simply a wedding gift,” she wrote.
It’s not clear how long Kremlev, who is president of the International Boxing Association, and Trump Jr. have known each other. They both appeared at one of the organization’s events in Turkey last September.
“I am proud to call Umar not only a leader but a friend,” Trump Jr. said at the time.
Kremlev said that they were “joining forces” and that “together, we will protect the transparency of boxing and open the door for the next generation.” He did not elaborate on how they were uniting.
Representatives for Kremlev and Trump Jr. did not immediately respond to requests for comment for this article.
Kremlev became head of the IBA in 2020. The association’s website says Putin presented Kremlev with an Order of Friendship medal in late April for his “contribution to international sport and his commitment to the global boxing family.”
Shortly before the Trump wedding, Kremlev was part of the Russian delegation that went with Putin to Beijing for a discussion of the future of boxing in China, according to Chinese state media.
Trump Jr. has met with people with ties to Putin.
Then-special counsel Robert Mueller scrutinized him during his father’s first term over a meeting he had amid the 2016 presidential campaign with a person who he was told was the “crown prosecutor of Russia” and had dirt on Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.
Trump Jr. responded to the offer in an email saying, “if it’s what you say I love it especially later in the summer.” The meeting with a Kremlin-linked lawyer and other Russians with ties to Putin took place at Trump Tower in June 2016 but did not yield any helpful information for the campaign, according to Mueller’s report.
While it is illegal for campaigns to accept help from foreign governments or from foreign nationals, Mueller declined to bring any charges in that part of the probe, because his investigators did not believe they could prove Trump Jr. acted “willfully” when he possibly violated campaign finance law.
Trump Jr.’s attorney, Alan Futerfas, said in 2019 in response to Mueller’s report that it confirmed that the meeting “was just what Don said it was, and nothing more, and that there was nothing improper about potentially listening to information.”
