The alleged friendship between Donald Trump Junior and Umar Kremlin alone would be remarkable: one the son of the sitting American president, the other a Russian businessman with ties to Vladimir Putin who reportedly speaks limited English. A spokesman for Donald Junior said they were not business partners, but friends who shared their love of sports. They met a few years ago and had a “friendly relationship,” Kremlin said.
After a relatively short time, the relationship was apparently so close that the president of the Russian Amateur Boxing Association spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on the president's son's wedding to influencer Bettina Anderson in the Bahamas in May. As the investigative online portal “Pro Publica” reported this week, Kremlin paid for several expenses. For example, the roughly $100,000 rent for a private island where a reception was held and a fireworks show, which usually costs around $70,000. His team is also said to have been involved in planning the weekend.
“It’s not about a cousin.”
The couple doesn't deny this. Bettina Trump wrote in a post on Instagram that the wedding was apparently making headlines, so she wanted to provide clarity. Her “good friend” Umar hosted “two incredible nights of celebration” after the actual wedding the day before. This was an “extraordinarily generous” wedding gift for which we will be eternally grateful. A few days before this meeting, Kremlin was seen with Putin in China.
The newlyweds referred to reports about the invitation that such an approach was inappropriate for a president's son or that political motives had played a role. It's a shame, wrote Bettina Trump, that something so personal and beautiful is portrayed "as something political or threatening" simply because of the person's origins or role. Generosity does not automatically come with an agenda. “No conspiracy, no mystery.”
The Democrats in Congress see it differently. They launched an investigation into the case on Tuesday. Robert Garcia, the ranking Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, questioned the Russian businessman's motives - what did he expect from the gift? Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer spoke of a “corrupt, venal, dangerous to national security” wedding arrangement. This is not about a cousin, but a Russian oligarch. Sometimes a wedding gift is a “bribe from a foreign autocrat.”
Kremlin can only be seen obscured in photos
The numbers suggest that Donald Junior could have afforded such celebrations himself. Forbes recently estimated his fortune at around $300 million. President Trump did not attend his son's wedding. He said at the time that he wanted that, but it would only be a “small, private matter”. When asked by the New York Times, the White House said that the president did not know who Umar was and had never heard of him. Incidentally, the wedding itself took place in a “completely different place and at a different time”.
The bride and groom apparently also resort to this argument. Bettina Trump argued in her Instagram post that the wedding reception itself took place on a neighboring island after plans changed on Friday. The weekend had been planned “for a long time” as a meeting with friends and not as a wedding celebration.
Generous donor Kremlin, whose association is financed by the state-controlled Russian energy company Gazprom, was not visible in photos of the celebrations shared on social media by Donald Junior and his wife. But it was in a group photo published by a guest that “Pro Publica” found. Half-hidden, in the last row.
