Donald Trump Jr. could soon face the kind of congressional scrutiny Republicans spent years demanding for Hunter Biden.
And the senator pushing for it is a Republican.
Sen. John Curtis of Utah is calling on the Republican-led Senate Judiciary Committee to investigate whether presidential family connections have been used for private financial benefit — and he wants the committee to subpoena both Donald Trump Jr. and Hunter Biden to testify.
Curtis made his case in a letter to Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley and ranking Democrat Dick Durbin.
His message was simple: there shouldn’t be one standard for the Biden family and another for the Trump family.
“The country should not have to accept one standard for the family of a Republican president and another for the family of a Democratic president,” Curtis wrote.
But Curtis wasn’t finished.
The Republican senator specifically pointed to reports surrounding Trump Jr.’s May wedding to Bettina Anderson in the Bahamas.
ProPublica previously reported that Russian businessman Umar Kremlev, who has close ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin, helped pay for post-wedding celebrations — including the rental of a private island and a fireworks display.
Trump Jr. and his wife subsequently acknowledged that Kremlev paid for two nights of celebrations, describing it as an extraordinarily generous wedding gift from a friend.
Curtis had a very different description.
“A toaster is a wedding gift. A private-island party paid for by a Putin-connected oligarch is something else.”
Then came the line aimed squarely at his own party:
“Republicans nearly wore out the subpoena machine investigating Hunter Biden’s foreign relationships. We should not unplug it now.”
That’s the part that makes Curtis’ demand particularly difficult for Republicans to simply dismiss.
For years, congressional Republicans investigated Hunter Biden’s foreign business relationships and whether his father’s political position benefited him.
Curtis now argues that the same scrutiny should apply to Trump’s family.
His proposed investigation would go considerably beyond the wedding celebration.
Curtis wants Trump Jr. questioned about past business dealings, relationships with foreign individuals and entities, gifts and other benefits — as well as situations in which his relationship with President Trump may have been invoked or understood to carry value.
Curtis also cited Trump Jr.’s involvement with family-backed cryptocurrency ventures, international real-estate activity and reported investments involving defense contracting as areas warranting scrutiny.
President Trump has defended his son.
Trump said last week that Trump Jr. told him he would reimburse Kremlev for the wedding celebrations.
A person familiar with the matter also told Reuters that Trump Jr. planned to reimburse him. Reuters reported that Trump said he did not know Kremlev and dismissed the controversy as “not a big deal.”
That does not appear to have satisfied Curtis.
“‘Trust us’ was not enough then, and it is not enough now,” the Republican senator wrote.
And there’s another twist.
Hunter Biden says he’s ready to show up.
In response to Curtis’ demand, Biden said he had already provided more than seven hours of sworn congressional testimony and offered to sit alongside Trump Jr. and testify again — without waiting for a subpoena.
Senate Judiciary Committee ranking Democrat Dick Durbin has also backed Curtis’ request.
Durbin noted that Hunter Biden has previously given a sworn deposition to Congress while Trump Jr. has not.
“For the Committee to ignore this matter is to run the risk of being complicit in a coverup,” Durbin said.
But a subpoena is not yet on the way.
Curtis is not a member of the Judiciary Committee and cannot issue one himself. Grassley, the Republican chairman, said he would take the request seriously and discuss it with committee staff, while other Republican members have yet to commit to an investigation.
So for now, Trump Jr. has not been ordered to testify.
But the political pressure is real — and the source of it makes this story unusual.
After years of Republican investigations into Hunter Biden’s foreign business relationships, a Republican senator is now asking his own party to apply that same principle to the president’s eldest son.
And Curtis’ argument can be reduced to six words:
“We should not unplug it now.”
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