Trump says son will reimburse Putin-linked Russian businessman Umar Kremlev

Filed 1h ago · Via NV · The Buffoon Desk

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Kevin MacLeod · incompetech.com · CC BY 4.0

Photo: Jason Krüger for Wikimedia · CC BY-SA 4.0 · via Wikimedia Commons

President Trump told reporters on Sept. 18 that his son, Donald Trump Jr., plans to repay Russian businessman Umar Kremlev for hundreds of thousands of dollars spent on wedding celebrations in the Bahamas, after being asked about a ProPublica investigation into the arrangement. Trump first said Kremlev ‘paid him back’ before correcting himself to say his son intended to do so.

ProPublica reported that Kremlev, head of the International Boxing Association, funded a private island rental and a fireworks display through a Dubai-based entity tied to the IBA, with the association itself denying it covered wedding costs. Kremlev was described by ProPublica as close to President Putin, having recently traveled to China alongside Russian officials and received Russia's Order of Friendship shortly before the wedding.

Trump Jr. and his wife confirmed Kremlev's role in an Instagram statement, calling him a ‘dear friend’ whose contribution was ‘an extraordinarily generous wedding gift.’ Democratic lawmakers have since opened an investigation into the financing, and President Trump said he did not attend the celebrations himself.

The full dispatch is available from the source below.

✒ FROM THE EDITORIAL DESK

A wedding fireworks show funded by a man with a Kremlin friendship medal is the sort of detail that used to require a novelist. The president's own account keeps shifting, from ‘he paid him back’ to ‘he's going to,’ which is not exactly the language of a settled matter. When the going explanation is that accepting the gift was ‘totally allowed,’ you can bet somebody's lawyer already disagrees.

Source: Read the original at NV → Scored: Bad Ideas (clean) · Kevin MacLeod · CC BY 4.0

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