ProPublica reports: Donald Trump Jr.’s Bahamas Wedding Was Secretly Bankrolled by Russian Oligarch Close to Putin. The oligarch in question was  Umar Kremlev and, of course, he has close ties to President Vladimir Putin.

Kremlev footed the bill for hundreds of thousands of dollars of wedding expenses, according to records reviewed by ProPublica and interviews with three people familiar with the event. The oligarch paid to rent out one of the private islands, where a reception was held and where guests slept. He also covered other big-ticket items, like the fireworks show, and his team helped plan the event. Kremlev is the head of the International Boxing Association, a scandal-plagued sports group that has been financed by the Russian state-owned energy giant Gazprom. The wedding payments came from an IBA-affiliated entity in Dubai that the boxing association uses for financial transactions.

[…]

In the days leading up to Trump Jr.’s wedding, Kremlev was in China as part of the delegation accompanying Putin, according to Chinese state media. The month before, Putin had bestowed him with a state honor, the Order of Friendship. The Ukrainian government has imposed sanctions on Kremlev personally, citing his closeness to Putin and Russian security services.

While it should be self-evident, I will plainly state that this is not the kind of person we should want hanging around, let alone financially benefiting, the son of the president.

It’s not clear why Kremlev helped pay for Trump Jr.’s wedding. The men appear to have met only recently. 

I’m guessing Kremlev has corrupt intent, but I guess I am not the trusting type who takes expensive gifts from people I met “a couple of years ago.”

In response to detailed questions, a spokesperson for Trump Jr. did not dispute the wedding payments from Kremlev. “Umar is a personal friend of Don,” he said. The spokesman said that Kremlev is “not someone he has a business relationship with” and that the men met through a mutual friend in the hunting world and bonded over their love of boxing and the outdoors.

[…]

In a statement, Kremlev’s press office said, “Mr. Kremlev and Mr. Trump Jr have a friendly relationship” and they first met “a couple of years ago.”

Well, that makes me feel better.

And somehow, I found this grimly funny, as either it is a simplistic denial that is probably untrue or just more evidence that Eric really is just out of the loop.

A spokesperson for Trump Jr.’s brother Eric said of Kremlev: “Eric has absolutely no clue who this person is, nor has never heard his name.”

Here are some details of the event and Kremlev’s involvement.

Trump Jr. exchanged vows with socialite Bettina Anderson on a private island that was featured in “Pirates of the Caribbean” and the 2006 James Bond movie “Casino Royale.” They had their first dance on a second private island nearby that can rent for around $100,000 a night, paid for by Kremlev. The company that put on the fireworks display charges around $70,000 for such shows. (Kremlev did not attend the ceremony itself, which was held on the first day and had just 18 guests, Trump Jr.’s spokesperson said.)

Allow me to pause and note how gauche and gaudy this all is.

The piece further notes that the wedding was constantly touted as being for only a small number of friends and family, but also just happened to have a small contingent of Russians.

Some longtime friends of Trump Jr. told associates they were disappointed not to be invited, though a few of his closest business partners — executives at the Trump family crypto company, World Liberty Financial, and the venture capital firm 1789 Capital — did make the cut. President Trump himself skipped it. (“He’d like me to go, but it’s going to be just a small, little private affair,” the president told reporters beforehand. “I said, you know, this is not good timing for me.”) But many of the guests were immediate family of the bride and groom.

That made the large contingent of Russians all the more conspicuous. “What are they doing here?” one person recalled thinking. At least one of the Russian guests had been with Kremlev on his China trip: Alexander Lagutin, a businessperson who has served in senior roles at a Russian defense contractor and a state-backed energy company. Kremlev’s right hand at the IBA, Elena Sobol, attended the wedding too. 

The piece notes that the whole boxing bit is more than just boxing.

Former high-level IBA officials said that Kremlev had a clear political agenda. “Umar is guided by Putin. It was using the sport for soft political power,” a former IBA board member told ProPublica. “It’s geopolitics. That it’s boxing is just happenstance.” Kremlev, 43, is also heavily involved in an organization called Healthy Fatherland, run by his 23-year-old wife’s twin sister. The group — which promotes healthy eating and youth sports — is under Ukrainian sanctions for its alleged role in a program of abducting Ukrainian children from occupied territories and relocating them under the guise of “rehabilitation.” (Healthy Fatherland did not respond to a request for comment.)

There is more about Kremlev in the article, all of which underscores that he is an unsavory character quite clearly intermeshed with the Kremlin.

All of this means that either Don is an idiot for not seeing and understanding who he is involved with, or he doesn’t care and just wants the gifts/to feel important (or, of course, los dos).

And just to add a finishing touch to Kremlev’s profile, there is this:

Recently, Kremlev has been working to expand into the U.S. market. In July, his group hosted a bare-knuckle boxing event in Miami, a chance to showcase a particularly bloody form of the sport in which contenders fight without gloves. But the debut was overshadowed when manosphere influencer Andrew Tate, who the IBA had brought in to host, was arrested by U.S. Marshals outside the arena. (Tate is facing rape and sex trafficking charges in the United Kingdom, which he has denied.)

The Andrew Tate connection is just a chef’s kiss of how gross all of this is.

What all of this demonstrates to me is the way in which the Trump family very much wants to operate the way Russian oligarchs do.

For example, via the AP: Company backed by Trump sons looks to sell drone interceptors to Gulf states being attacked by Iran.

A drone maker backed by President Donald Trump’s two oldest sons is trying to sell to Gulf countries while they are under attack by Iran and dependent on the U.S. military led by their father.

The sales drive by Florida-based Powerus – which announced a deal last month to bring aboard Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr. – positions the company to potentially benefit from a war that their father began.

“These countries are under enormous pressure to buy from the sons of the president so he will do what they want,” said Richard Painter, a former chief White House ethics lawyer under President George W. Bush. “This is going to be the first family of a president to make a lot of money off war — a war he didn’t get the consent of Congress for.”

Or, via ProPublica: The White House Intervened to Get a $620 Million Deal for a Company Tied to Donald Trump Jr.

When the Pentagon announced a $620 million loan last year to a small North Carolina startup linked to Donald Trump Jr., defense officials and the company tried to tamp down suspicions of cronyism. 

The president’s eldest son said through a spokesperson that he wasn’t involved. The Pentagon said Trump Jr. played no role in the record-setting deal. And the startup’s founder told reporters that his company, Vulcan Elements, received no political favoritism.

But interviews and Defense Department records reviewed by ProPublica show that the request to loan hundreds of millions of dollars to the firm linked to Trump Jr. was made by Peter Navarro, a White House adviser to President Donald Trump and a friend of Trump Jr.’s.

So we have Don Jr. cavorting with a Russian oligarch with direct and deep links to the Russian government, while at the same time Don and Eric are cultivating their own corrupt business practices because their father is in the White House (not to mention the crypto and other business ventures enriching themselves and their father). This is nothing more than raw self-interest and greed creating an obvious intelligence and national security nightmare.

Add to all of that that instead of employing experts to try and find a way to end the war in Ukraine, Trump sends his son-in-law and a business associate to negotiate. Meanwhile, as James Joyner has written over the last several days, we have evidence of Russia tampering with deep-sea cables and likely targeting NATO dignitaries. This is all very dangerous and suggests Putin is escalating while the Trump administration continues to act like easily manipulated amateurs who really just want to be like Vlad.

We in the US are currently governed by corrupt and deeply unserious people who are weakening the US (and Europe) in profound and long-term ways to enrich themselves.

The damage is immense, and fixing it, if we even try, is going to be very hard.