Russian oligarch close to Putin reportedly paid for part of Donald Trump Jr’s lavish wedding

Donald Trump Jr and his wife, Bettina, confirmed on Monday that a Russian oligarch close to Vladimir Putin partially paid for the couple’s wedding celebrations in May, following a ProPublica report revealing Umar Kremlev spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on the events.

Trump Jr, the US president’s eldest child, married the Palm Beach socialite in a lavish three-day celebration across two exclusive private islands in May.

Citing records and interviews with three anonymous sources familiar with the event, ProPublica reported that Kremlev, a member of the Russian president’s circle, footed the bill to rent one of the islands where a reception was held and where guests slept, along with other large expenses, including a huge firework show.

In a statement signed by the couple and shared on Bettina Trump’s Instagram after ProPublica’s report was published, they confirmed Kremlev’s contributions to the celebrations and characterized them as “an extraordinarily generous wedding gift from a friend, and something for which we were and remain incredibly grateful”.

A top Democrat demanded answers on the Trumps’ ties to Kremlev.

“Why did a Russian oligarch close to Putin fund Trump Jr.’s wedding in the Bahamas?” posted Robert Garcia, the ranking member and lead Democrat on the House oversight committee, on social media. “Umar Kremlev spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on the President’s son. What did he get in return? We need answers.”

Kremlev has a longstanding relationship with Putin. He is the head of the International Boxing Association (IBA), a sporting body that has been backed by the state-owned Russian energy company Gazprom. According to ProPublica, the wedding payments came from an IBA-affiliated entity in Dubai that the boxing association uses for financial transactions.

In the days before the wedding party, he reportedly went to China as part of a delegation accompanying Putin, and the month prior the Russian president had bestowed him with a state honor, the Order of Friendship. The Ukrainian government has imposed sanctions on Kremlev, citing his closeness to Putin and Russian security services.

Alexander Lagutin, a businessperson who has held senior roles at a Russian defense contractor and a state-backed energy company, had been with Kremlev on the China trip. Kremlev’s right hand at the IBA, Elena Sobol, attended the wedding, too.

While the event was extravagant, the guest list was intimate, with only about 50 people attending, most of whom were immediate family, close friends and business partners of the couple. Then there was Kremlev, who reportedly didn’t attend the ceremony itself, which was limited to just 18 guests, but was present with a large contingent of Russians at the party, much to the confusion of the other guests. The group reportedly sometimes stood off by themselves speaking Russian, according to ProPublica.

The affair has raised questions about the implications of a member of Putin’s circle financially supporting and gaining such intimate access to the US president’s family. In recent years Trump Jr has emerged as a leading campaign surrogate for Trump and has even been touted as a potential political heir.

Donald Sherman, the president and CEO of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (Crew), said it is in the public interest for Congress to strongly consider requiring financial disclosure statements of a president’s adult children, in addition to the president themselves.

The crux of the issue is the nature of the friendship, and whether the giving of gifts is genuine or designed to influence, Sherman said. “We know that private companies and foreign governments have been seeking to gain Don Jr’s favor in order to serve their own financial interests. And so, it’s important that there is a measure of transparency when folks tied to the Russian government are lavishing the president’s rich adult son with expensive gifts.”

He added: “Most of us learn as children that ‘there’s no such thing as a free lunch’. It’s one thing if, in the nature of this friendship, there’s a mutual exchange of lavish gifts. It’s another if someone’s daddy becomes president and then all of a sudden this new friend starts giving gifts – that context very much matters.”

In similar vein, retired FBI official Frank Montoya Jr told ProPublica: “If I’m paying for your wedding, at some point, you’re going to owe me something. This should be unthinkable for the son of the president.”

It remains unclear why Kremlev helped pay for the wedding and why he was there, when he appears to have only met Trump Jr – the executive vice-president of the Trump Organization, who has a personal net worth somewhere in the ballpark of $300m – quite recently.

Donald Trump famously didn’t attend the wedding. “He’d like me to go, but it’s going to be just a small, little private affair,” the US president told reporters a few days before the nuptials. “I said, you know, this is not good timing for me. I have a thing called Iran and other things.”

In response to detailed questions from ProPublica, a spokesperson for Trump Jr did not deny that Kremlev had helped fund the wedding. “Umar is a personal friend of Don,” the spokesperson said, adding Kremlev is “not someone he has a business relationship with” and that the men met through a mutual friend in the hunting world.

In their joint Instagram statement, Trump Jr and Bettina Trump thanked “our dear friend Umar” who “very generously hosted two incredible nights of celebrations for us AFTER our wedding”.

They said they “got married privately” on 22 May “surrounded ONLY by our family”, and said the Russian businessman had simply given them a gift.

“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,” they said.