The Russian oligarch who bankrolled Donald Trump Jr.’s wedding

SPEAKER_1 (0:00)

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Chris Bentley (0:16)

WBUR podcasts, Boston.

Joshua Kaplan (0:21)

Don almost bragged about the event's privacy. He said, if you were on that list, you weren't talking.

Chris Bentley (0:31)

Behind the scenes of Donald Trump Jr.'s private island wedding and the Russian oligarch who helped pay for it.

It's Tuesday, September 15th and this is Here & Now Anytime from NPR and WBUR. I'm Chris Bentley. Today on the show, cutting climate controls probably won't bring back the glory days of coal, but it could help some polluting plants stay in business.

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The economics is still going to favor more natural gas and renewables. However, during some times and in some places, coal can still be competitive for electricity generation, especially during peak demand times, such as during winter storms or increasingly during heatwaves.

Chris Bentley (1:21)

Before we get to that story, though, California Congressman Robert Garcia says Democrats are now investigating how and why a Russian oligarch bankrolled Donald Trump Jr.'s wedding. The president's son got married on a private island in the Bahamas in May, but it wasn't until this week when ProPublica published his story that the world found out some of it was paid for by Umar Kremlev, a Russian oligarch close to President Vladimir Putin.

Joshua Kaplan was one of the ProPublica reporters who broke that story, and he shared more about their investigation with Robin Young.

Robin Young (1:55)

We have to say right at the top, Donald Trump Jr. and his now wife, Bettina Anderson, posted a response to your story on Instagram, saying, their dear friend, Umar, very generously hosted two incredible nights after our wedding, that after our wedding in caps making a distinction between the ceremony and the celebrations. President Trump said it was an after party, given in their honor, no big deal.

You say what?

Joshua Kaplan (2:18)

This was, we discovered that Donald Trump Jr's wedding was secretly funded by a Russian oligarch close to Putin. I don't want to get overly lost in this distinction, this distinction between the ceremony itself and the reception was not something that was being treated by Don or Bettina or the guests in all their public statements about this as separate from the wedding until this became controversial.

Robin Young (2:47)

Well, and tick off some of the things that were paid for by Umar Kremlev.

Joshua Kaplan (2:52)

So this oligarch paid for a private island in the Bahamas. He rented it out for multiple nights where guests slept and where reception was held. He paid for this extravagant firework show.

We're talking about hundreds of thousands of dollars of wedding expenses here paid for in secret. And Don Jr. first met this guy only really very recently. This is not a situation where Don Jr.'s college buddy just happens to be a very generous Russian oligarch.

Robin Young (3:24)

Well, we'll take that up because a spokesperson for Don Trump Jr. said Kremlev was a personal friend. A spokesperson for his brother, Eric Trump, said, Eric has absolutely no clue who this person is, nor has he ever heard his name.

And the group of friends that were at the wedding, you report, were kind of mystified by who this group of Russians was, that kind of kept apart from everyone. President Trump says he never heard of him. What do you make of that? Yeah.

Joshua Kaplan (3:51)

I mean, there's a lot of mysteries around this relationship still, frankly. We don't understand at this point what Kremlev's motive is in this, why he spent so much money seemingly successfully cultivating a relationship with the president's son.

Robin Young (4:06)

Well, and he has an incredible backstory. He had a rough beginning as part of a gang that was affiliated with Putin at the time and then was drawn into Putin's orbit and ended up being the head of the International Boxing Association, financed by the Russian state-owned energy giant Gazprom. It no longer is. It's got other financing. But can you just give me more to that thumbnail?

Yeah.

Joshua Kaplan (4:31)

I think the most important thing to understand about Kremlev is the level of his connection with the Russian government. In the days right before the wedding, Kremlev was reportedly in China as part of the delegation accompanying Putin there. A month before the wedding, he received the latest in a series of state honors that he's gotten from Putin himself. After Russia invaded Ukraine, the Ukrainian government sanctioned Kremlev personally.

The state has given him a lot of assets that have made this person who was a no-name figure with a criminal record into a very, very wealthy man.