Congressional Democrats have opened an investigation after ProPublica revealed on Monday that a Russian oligarch close to Vladimir Putin bankrolled part of Donald Trump Jr.’s Bahamas wedding in May. ProPublica reports that Umar Kremlev paid hundreds of thousands of dollars on wedding expenses, including the rental of a private island. Just weeks before the wedding, Putin awarded Kremlev the Order of Friendship.
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Trump Jr. and his wife, Bettina Anderson, confirmed _ProPublica_’s findings in a social media post, specifying that Kremlev only paid for an afterparty.
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“The most important thing to understand about Kremlev is the level of his connection with the Russian government. Right before the wedding … he was reportedly traveling in China as part of Putin’s delegation,” says Joshua Kaplan, the ProPublica reporter who was part of the team that broke the story. “He’s spent a lot of money seemingly successfully cultivating a relationship with the son of the president, and we have no idea why.”
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