GOP Sen. John Curtis calls for Trump Jr., Hunter Biden investigations

Republican Sen. John Curtis (Utah) has sent a letter to leaders of the Senate Judiciary Committee asking them to investigate President Trump’s and former President Biden’s business dealings and to subpoena Donald Trump Jr. and Hunter Biden to testify before Congress.

Curtis said that reports about foreign interests using Trump Jr. and Biden to gain access to their powerful fathers “raise legitimate questions about foreign access to members of a sitting president’s family and whether such a relationship can create actual or perceived expectations of favorable treatment.”

The call by a GOP senator for a subpoena of Trump Jr. is a bombshell several weeks out from the midterm elections. Republican senators have been hesitant about getting into the crosshairs of Trump, aside from members who are not running for reelection.

A GOP senator calling for the Judiciary Committee to look into Biden, in contrast, is less unusual.

Curtis cited Biden’s “substantial business with foreign entities, including interests in China and Ukraine, while his father held or sought public office” and a recent report by ProPublica that Russian oligarch Umar Kremlev paid a substantial portion of the expenses for Trump Jr.’s three-day after-wedding party in the Bahamas.

Curtis wrote that his concerns over Kremlev’s lavish generosity were “compounded by Donald Trump Jr.’s active promotion of family-backed cryptocurrency ventures, his continued pursuit of international real estate deals involving direct meetings with foreign heads of state, and his reported investments in defense contracting.”

The Utah Republican also flagged Trump Jr.’s “significant financial and advisory ties to prediction market platforms that depend on favorable federal regulatory decisions being considered by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.”

He is requesting that Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), the Judiciary Committee’s ranking member, launch an investigation “into the use of presidential family relationships for private financial benefit, preferential treatment or access by domestic and foreign interests.”

He urged the panel leaders to subpoena Trump Jr. and Biden to testify about their past dealings and relationships with foreign individuals and entities, as well as about gifts they have received.

“Americans deserve confidence that public institutions serve them — not presidents, political parties, wealthy interests, or members of powerful families. Congress has an obligation to pursue credible concerns wherever they lead and without regard to party,” Curtis wrote.