Rep. Robert Garcia of California, the ranking Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, has opened an investigation into payments by Umar Kremlev, a Russian oligarch whom Vladimir Putin decorated in April, towards Donald Trump Jr.'s wedding celebrations in the Bahamas in May.

Garcia wrote to Trump Jr. and to White House chief of staff Susie Wiles on 14 September, the day ProPublica first reported that Kremlev had spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on the wedding weekend. His letter to Trump Jr. set a deadline of 28 September. "This may be the most serious allegation against you to date," Garcia wrote.

Kremlev is president of the International Boxing Association, a body the International Olympic Committee expelled in 2023 and the Russian state gas company Gazprom once sponsored. Ukraine placed him under sanctions in December 2024. Putin gave him the Order of Friendship on 22 April, a month before the wedding.

Trump Jr. holds no federal office, and no US law bars a private citizen from accepting a gift from a foreign national. Garcia wrote that the relationship "raises serious national security and public corruption concerns," and that Trump Jr. is a part-owner of and major investor in "multiple companies with extensive Department of Defense contracts."

Four days after the first ProPublica story, the attorney general had asked reporters what there was to investigate, the FBI director had told a Senate committee that public reporting is "generally inaccurate," the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee had asked the FBI for a counterintelligence review and a Republican senator had called the payments corruption. President Trump said on 14 September that he had never heard of Kremlev, and on 18 September that he had asked his son about the payments "a while ago."

Garcia's letters

Garcia's letter to Trump Jr. contains seven requests for documents. He asked for every date on which Trump Jr. has been in contact with Kremlev, and for their communications on government affairs, investments, business and national security. He asked for financial records of every purchase made for the wedding by a foreign national, and for a list of all gifts Trump Jr. has received from foreign nationals or from people tied to US adversaries.

Garcia also asked for the full guest list, including entourages and visitors to Little Pipe Cay, one of the islands used over the weekend. A separate request covers business done by Pentagon contractors in which Trump Jr. works or invests, and any dealings those companies have had with wedding guests. The last request seeks any communications with the White House or with counterintelligence officials about Kremlev.

Trump Jr. is asked in five written questions whether he holds a security clearance, whether he disclosed the relationship to any part of the government, whether anyone warned him about Kremlev in advance and whether anything was given or promised in return for the gifts.

Garcia asked Wiles for all White House communications with Trump Jr. concerning Kremlev, whether Trump Jr. has a security clearance and whether he told the White House about the relationship, Axios reported. Garcia also asked both recipients to preserve all records on the matter.

Democrats are in the minority in the House, so Garcia cannot issue subpoenas and the letters carry no legal force. He would gain the power to compel documents and testimony if Democrats win control of the House in the November midterm elections, Axios reported.

Jamie Raskin, the ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, wrote to Trump Jr. and the founders of 1789 Capital on 26 August about the venture firm, where Trump Jr. has been a partner since November 2024. Raskin's letter listed federal decisions that followed the fund's investments, among them $620 million in Pentagon loans and $50 million in Commerce Department grants to Vulcan Elements, a magnet maker in its portfolio.

Two nights on two islands

Trump Jr. married Bettina Anderson on Friday 22 May on a private island in the Bahamas, in a ceremony of 18 guests, ProPublica reported. About 50 guests, among them Jared Kushner, attended a party on the same island on the Saturday night. On the Sunday the party moved to a second private island about 10 minutes away by boat, where the couple had their first dance, with the bride in her wedding dress, and cut a five-tier cake topped with a bride and groom.

Kremlev paid for island rental across more than one night and for a fireworks display, ProPublica reported, citing records and three people familiar with the wedding. Garcia's letter puts the island at about $100,000 a night and the fireworks at about $70,000. Kremlev's staff helped plan the event.

IB Challenger, a company in Dubai that the International Boxing Association uses for financial transactions, made the payments. Kremlev moved much of the association's business from Lausanne to the United Arab Emirates after Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, when he told associates he was "very afraid" of US sanctions, a person close to the association's leadership told ProPublica. The US has never publicly sanctioned him.

Kremlev attended the Sunday reception. Alexander Lagutin, a businessman who has held senior posts at a Russian defence contractor and a state-backed energy company, and Elena Sobol, Kremlev's deputy at the boxing association, were also guests. Lagutin had travelled with Kremlev to China days earlier, when Chinese state media recorded Kremlev with Putin's delegation. Kremlev's press office told ProPublica he was not part of the official delegation.

Garcia's letter says Trump Jr. first met Kremlev in September 2025, when the boxing association brought him to Istanbul for a panel with Kremlev, Manny Pacquiao and Rasheda Ali. The association's press release after the panel said the two men had made clear that "this alliance will not remain symbolic." Kremlev's press office told ProPublica the two had been friends since "a couple of years ago." A spokesperson for Trump Jr. told ProPublica they met through a mutual friend in hunting circles.

Shifting accounts

Bettina Trump confirmed the payments in an Instagram post on 14 September. "Our dear friend Umar very generously hosted two incredible nights of celebrations for us AFTER our wedding," she wrote, calling it "an extraordinarily generous wedding gift from a friend." She wrote that the couple had married in a private ceremony "surrounded ONLY by our family" and that "friendship doesn't require a political motive." The post said nothing about repaying Kremlev.

President Trump issued a statement the same evening. "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," he said. "It was an 'afterparty' given in their honor. Not a big deal! I was not present at the party." ProPublica's reporting places the Saturday party on the island where the couple married.

Trump told reporters in the Oval Office on 18 September that the payments were "totally allowed." He described Kremlev as "a person that he knows pretty, I guess a friend of his," and said a friend giving a wedding party was "very common."

Trump said in the same remarks that he had asked his son about the payments, and that his son had answered: "No, I'm paying it back, Dad." Trump said the conversation "was a while ago," four days after his statement that he had never heard of Kremlev. He also said, "I hear he paid them back," the Associated Press and ABC News reported.

A person familiar with the matter told Bloomberg that Trump Jr. has repaid Kremlev, without giving the amount or the date. Neither Trump Jr. nor Kremlev has confirmed a repayment, and neither the White House nor the Trump Organization has produced evidence of one, ABC News reported.

Eric Trump's spokesperson told ProPublica that Eric Trump "has absolutely no clue who this person is." Kushner and the Russian government did not respond to ProPublica's requests for comment.

Justice Department, FBI and Congress

Attorney General Todd Blanche told reporters at a White House briefing in the Rose Garden on 15 September that the president and other members of the family did not know Kremlev. Asked whether he would investigate, Blanche said: "Am I investigating what?" He also said: "When you say this person is a friend of Putin, I don't even know if that's true or not."

FBI Director Kash Patel appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee the same day. Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut asked him whether the FBI had opened an inquiry into a possible intelligence compromise, citing Kremlev's ties to Putin and a group linked to him that Ukraine accuses of deporting children. "I'm not sure what public reporting you are referring to," Patel said, and later told Blumenthal that "public reporting is generally inaccurate." Patel said the FBI would "look into whatever information comes our way." Blumenthal told him to open an investigation immediately.

Rep. Jim Himes of Connecticut, the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, wrote to Patel on 17 September. "A Kremlin-connected individual provided substantial undisclosed financial benefits to a close family member and political adviser of the President," Himes wrote. He asked for a counterintelligence review and for answers to a set of questions by 30 September.

Sen. John Curtis, a Utah Republican, addressed the payments in a video posted on 18 September. "It's corruption. I don't like it," he said. "You'll hear more from me later on. This is a big deal."

Frank Montoya Jr., a retired FBI official who held senior counterintelligence posts, told ProPublica: "If I'm paying for your wedding, at some point, you're going to owe me something."

Kremlev

Kremlev was born Umar Lutfulloev in Serpukhov, south of Moscow, in 1982. The Russian independent outlet Proekt reported that he was convicted of extortion in 2004 and of battery in 2007 before changing his surname in 2010. His press office told ProPublica he has "a completely clean legal record."

Kremlev rose through the Night Wolves, a biker club the US Treasury sanctioned in December 2014 over its part in Russia's seizure of Crimea, Proekt reported. He and Alexei Rubezhnoi, now head of Putin's presidential security service, took control of the Russian Boxing Federation in 2016, according to Proekt.

Kremlev was elected president of the International Boxing Association in December 2020. Gazprom signed as its general partner in April 2021. The International Olympic Committee withdrew recognition of the association on 22 June 2023, the first such expulsion of an international federation, citing governance failures and the association's refusal to explain the sources of its money.

Fonbet, Pari and Liga Stavok, Russia's three largest bookmakers, came under Kremlev's control through proxies in 2022 and 2023, according to Proekt, and took 51.48 per cent of the country's legal betting market in 2023. Kremlev bought Rolf, Russia's largest car dealership, from the state in 2024 after it was nationalised by presidential decree, Reuters and Meduza reported.

Ukraine's National Security and Defence Council sanctioned Kremlev on 9 December 2024. The listing cites his closeness to Putin, his control of the boxing association and his large share of the Russian betting market.

Healthy Fatherland

Ukraine's National Security and Defence Council sanctioned Healthy Fatherland, a Moscow-based group that promotes patriotic and sports education, on 22 November 2023. Ukraine's Defence Intelligence agency lists it on its register of child kidnappers and accuses it of taking part in the mass abduction, illegal deportation and forced relocation of Ukrainian citizens, including children.

Healthy Fatherland distributes aid in occupied Ukraine and calls it evacuation, and runs "rehabilitation," leisure and education programmes in Russia for children from those areas, according to the agency. The agency says the group works with Russia's Ministry of Defence and the Russian-installed administration in Luhansk.

Healthy Fatherland's own website says it has run recreation and rehabilitation programmes for more than 3,000 children from Russia's Kursk and Belgorod border regions, from what it calls Russia's "new regions" and from the families of Russian soldiers fighting in Ukraine. It says it has built 12 children's leisure centres and nine sports facilities in the four Ukrainian regions Russia claims to have annexed. The site lists the United Russia party, the All-Russian People's Front and the Russian Paralympic Committee among its partners, together with the Single Regulator of Gambling, the body that supervises Russian bookmakers.

Ekaterina Leshchinskaya, the twin sister of Kremlev's wife, has chaired Healthy Fatherland since October 2024, according to Russian company filings collected by OpenSanctions. Oleg Saitov, a double Olympic boxing champion and an executive of the Russian Boxing Federation, chaired the group from March 2021 to November 2022. ProPublica reported that Kremlev is heavily involved in the group, which did not respond to ProPublica's request for comment.

Raimkul Malakhbekov, chairman of Healthy Fatherland's board since October 2024, is on the same Ukrainian register of child kidnappers. The agency says he helped send Ukrainian children to Artek, a children's camp in occupied Crimea that Ukraine sanctioned in June 2025.

Ukraine's sanctions listing for Kremlev himself does not mention children, and no Ukrainian agency has accused him personally of taking part in the programmes. OpenSanctions shows no sanctions on Healthy Fatherland outside Ukraine. The EU sanctioned 16 people and seven organisations on 11 May 2026 over the deportation and indoctrination of Ukrainian children, and Healthy Fatherland was not among them.

Deportation findings

Ukraine's government counts 20,651 children deported or forcibly displaced since February 2022, of whom 2,590 have been brought home.

The UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine found on 12 March 2026 that Russian authorities had committed crimes against humanity through the deportation and forcible transfer of Ukrainian children and through enforced disappearances. The commission verified the removal of more than 1,200 children from five Ukrainian regions and found that about 80 per cent had not been returned to their families. It found the policy was conceived and carried out by senior Russian leaders, including Putin and Maria Lvova-Belova, Russia's commissioner for children's rights.

The International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Putin and Lvova-Belova on 17 March 2023 over the unlawful deportation and transfer of children from occupied Ukraine to Russia. Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention prohibits the deportation or forcible transfer of protected persons from occupied territory, whatever the motive.