Why It Matters publishes guest essays providing thoughtful analysis of critical issues. Casey Michel is the author of “United States of Oligarchy”
It’s hardly surprising that Donald Trump and his family are considered the most corrupt occupants the White House has ever seen. Perhaps the only surprise remaining is that, especially for those of us who cover and analyze corruption for a living, there are still moments that can shock us.
Such was the case last week, when ProPublica revealed that a Kremlin-linked figure named Umar Kremlov secretly paid for much of Donald Trump Jr.’s wedding weekend earlier this year. As ProPublica discovered, Kremlov provided Trump Jr. and his wife with a “gift” of hundreds of thousands of dollars, all to help celebrate their nuptials. It was, as Trump Jr.’s wife described it, an offer from a “dear friend,” and one they simply couldn’t turn down.
If only that were so. As those who follow the world of both corruption and Russian malign influence know, Kremlov is hardly an apolitical actor. He is instead a Russian businessman who is remarkably close to the Kremlin. Indeed, describing him as a businessman is perhaps too generous. Not only was Kremlov previously convicted of multiple crimes, ranging from extortion to battery, but he has been specifically sanctioned by the Ukrainian government for his relationship Vladimir Putin. Kremlev owes much (if not all) of his wealth to remaining in the Kremlin’s good graces, and to retaining his relationship with Russia’s leadership – a fact that the Kremlin knows well, and is eager to take advantage of.
“Kremlev is a very well-known figure – and a particularly vivid representative of a new generation of Putin-era oligarchs,” Russian journalist Mikhail Zygar noted. “He is a product of one of the most important transformations of Putin’s Russia: the emergence of businessmen whose wealth depends not primarily on privatization, natural resources or entrepreneurial talent, but on access to the security services and, ultimately, to Putin himself.” In other words, Kremlov is no anodyne businessman. He is, instead, something closer to a gangster who has ascended the ranks of the Kremlin’s power structures – and who now acts as a proxy for Russian interests, including the cultivation of members of the Trump family.
It’s unclear how much Trump Jr. or his wife knew about Kremlev’s background, his relationship with Putin, or what he and the Kremlin ultimately wanted. But the reality is now inescapable: a Russian gangster and Kremlin proxy successfully gave a six-figure gift to the son of the sitting US president – all of which would have remained secret had it not been for pioneering journalists at ProPublica.
There are still a raft of questions swirling the entire affair. How much did the rest of the Trump family know about the payment? (Both the president and Eric Trump have denied any knowledge of Kremlov or the payment, effectively throwing Trump Jr. under the bus.) Will Trump Jr. actually return the payment, as his father said? And was the payment about more than simply leverage? Were Kremlev and his associates happy to simply have Trump Jr. indebted to them, or did they gain any compromising material at the wedding itself?
These are all questions we won’t have answers to as long as Republicans control both the presidency and Congress. But should Democrats regain the House (and potentially the Senate), they now have that much more reason to set up a select committee to specifically investigate all the corruption drowning the Trump family – and to finally unearth what the Kremlin was trying to do in cultivating Trump Jr. and others at the wedding.
After all, the entire affair hardly exists in a vacuum. This is but the latest in a long litany of corrupt or questionable actions involving the Trump family, both before and during Trump’s presidency. Many of those involve Trump Jr. himself, from his work at the crypto firm World Liberty Financial, which secretly counted the foreign regime in the United Arab Emirates as one of its primary backers. But others within the family have been more than happy to profiteer from the presidency, including Eric Trump’s role in both crypto payment schemes and favorable defense contracts. And there is, of course, Jared Kushner and myriad foreign clients, all of whom have plowed billions of dollars into Kushner’s firm – and all while the Kremlin continues to dangle contracts supposedly worth trillions of dollars to Kushner and his contacts.
It is all far beyond anything we’ve ever seen prior, and points directly to how all of these kinds of links – clandestine payments, secret investments, pay-to-play access from foreign regimes around the world – distorts American foreign policy, and even sells American national security to the highest bidder. A Russian gangster secretly paying for the son of a sitting president may be the most bizarre, but it fits a pattern we’ve seen emerge in recent years, especially involving the Trump family.
There’s a name for all of this: “strategic corruption.” First popularized in 2020, this describes a kind of covert payment scheme or structure that goes beyond traditional corruption. Instead, this is a generally state-led effort to use corruption – including bribes, crypto payments, and, yes, gifts – to obtain the kinds of policy outcomes that states want. Nor do these kinds of corrupt payments have to necessarily involve a government official. Instead, they can often involve proxies and connections for the regimes in question, from oligarchs to gangsters to family members. All of it is generally hidden in backroom deals, and generally concealed by anonymous or under-the-table payments. But it all results in policy decision being sold to the highest bidder, wherever they are.
It’s unclear what the primary policy outcome Kremlev and his handlers in the Kremlin wanted. Maybe it was sanctions relief. Maybe it was the further pullback of American support for Ukraine. Maybe it was something else entirely. But the specific ask is almost beside the point. The reality is that, because of an apparent combination of both ignorance and bottomless greed, Trump Jr. and his wife opened their wedding to a man who is little more than a foot-soldier for the Kremlin – and opened up American policy-making that much more to a regime who wants to destabilize the US, destroy American interests, and roll back American influence. The Kremlin, and corrupt actors around the world, couldn’t have asked for more.