Putin-tied Russian oligarch paid for Trump Jr.'s wedding celebrations

Geoff Bennett:

A new report from ProPublica says a Russian oligarch with ties to President Vladimir Putin helped fund Donald Trump Jr.'s lavish wedding celebration in the Bahamas earlier this year.

Here with more on this is our White House correspondent, Liz Landers.

Liz Landers:

According to the report, Umar Kremlev, a Russian businessman and president of the International Boxing Association, paid hundreds of thousands of dollars in expenses for the president's son's wedding weekend, including the rental of a private island and a fireworks display.

Joining us to discuss his reporting is Justin Elliott, one of the team of journalists investigating the story for ProPublica.

Justin, thank you for joining us.

Justin Elliott, ProPublica:

Good to be here.

Liz Landers:

How did you trace this money to this Russian oligarch? What did you find in your reporting?

Justin Elliott:

Yes, so we talked to a lot of people that -- both in Donald Trump Jr.'s world and in the oligarch's world, and we ultimately reviewed records and talked to people who had intimate knowledge of this, of these payments.

We found -- we don't have the exact number, but we know that well into the six figures was spent in wedding payments for Donald Trump Jr. And after the story was published, Bettina Trump, Donald Trump Jr.'s new wife, made a post on Instagram confirming that Umar Kremlev had paid for the wedding and describing him as a personal friend.

Liz Landers:

I want to ask about that. So she said in a statement on Instagram today that their wedding was on a Friday, that they were surrounded only by family, and that friends came for the weekend to celebrate.

She added -- quote -- "Our dear friend Umar very generously hosted two incredible nights of celebrations for us after our wedding. It was an extraordinarily generous wedding gift from a friend, and something for which we were and remain incredibly grateful."

What's your response to her explanation? What do you make of that?

Justin Elliott:

Yes, I mean, it's consistent with our reporting. This was a three-day wedding. The actual wedding ceremony was on the Friday. As she says, that was just family, and then this larger group of around 50 guests were there for the sort of two days of partying, which is what Kremlev paid for.

I think the thing that really still has not been fully explained is how this Russian oligarch who by their own account met Donald Trump Jr. only a couple of years ago ended up paying hundreds of thousands of dollars at least in wedding expenses. It's just not a situation that any of us had ever heard of a kind of new friend paying for your wedding.

Liz Landers:

What else did you find about the relationship between Don Jr. and Kremlev? And what did Umar Kremlev say about why he funded this?

Justin Elliott:

So we actually found very little about the relationship between Donald Trump Jr. and Umar Kremlev. For one thing, we have talked to a lot of people that have worked with Kremlev over the years and we're told very consistently that he speaks limited English.

I think the thing that we were very fixated on is that he's not just a random businessman. He is somebody that has very close connections to the Russian government, owes a lot of his wealth to the direct interventions of the Russian government, and is in President Vladimir Putin's circle.

And so we talked to a lot of both Republican and Democratic former FBI counterintelligence officials, who said that, if they'd heard about this sort of thing when they were in the government, it would have been a sort of five-alarm situation, where they would have been warning the family member of the president, in this case, Donald Trump Jr., that, look, this person may have other motivations besides just friendly generosity.

In terms of what Kremlev said, Kremlev's spokesperson actually didn't address our questions about why he had paid for this, beyond saying that they were friends who had met a couple of years ago.

Liz Landers:

We should mention that President Trump did not attend this wedding, but Jared Kushner, who is negotiating on behalf of the U.S. government with this Ukraine-Russia conflict, he was there. What more do we know about who Kremlev is and his relationship with Putin?

Justin Elliott:

Yes, I mean, it's interesting.

One of the things we learned actually is that is that, just a few days before the wedding in the Bahamas, Kremlev was actually in China as part of President Putin's official delegation to China. Putin was in China at the same time. We also know he's gotten several awards from Putin as recently as this past April. I think he received the Order of Friendship.

It's an important award given out by the Russian government. And I think, sort of most of all, Kremlev's fortune, he owes to the Russian government. I mean, for example, he owns the largest car dealership company in Russia, and that was a company that was previously nationalized, and then the government announced that Umar Kremlev was the new owner.

Again, he's not just a random businessman. He's somebody that has very close connections to the Russian government. And as one of the former FBI officials who we spoke to said, his concern was, if somebody pays for your wedding, at some point, you're going to owe them something.

Liz Landers:

Donald Trump Jr. is worth around $300 million, according to a recent estimate from Forbes. Why didn't he just pay for this himself?

Justin Elliott:

You know, that's a good question. I mean, I have heard of the bride's family paying for the wedding. I have never heard of a situation of a friend, and certainly not a sort of recently acquired friend, paying for a wedding.

We don't have full insight into Donald Trump Jr.'s wealth. How much of his multihundred-million dollar fortune is actually liquid, ready to spend, I don't know, or maybe it's just a hard thing to refuse if somebody's offering to foot the bill for -- a lot of the bill for this very expensive weekend.

So they -- Donald Trump Jr.'s people did not comment on that. The statement that they released after our story did not comment on this, besides saying that they were very grateful for what they described as a very, very generous gift.

Liz Landers:

Justin Elliott, thank you so much for sharing your reporting.

Justin Elliott:

Thanks so much.