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Curtis asks Grassley and Durbin to subpoena Trump Jr. over the family's crypto ventures
Senator John Curtis wants the Judiciary Committee to compel testimony from Donald Trump Jr. and Hunter Biden over their family business dealings. Durbin backed the request, though a subpoena still needs Grassley.
The Investor · Invest desk
What happened
- Senator John Curtis of Utah wrote to Judiciary Chair Chuck Grassley and ranking Democrat Dick Durbin asking for subpoenas of Donald Trump Jr. and Hunter Biden over the use of family relationships for private financial benefit.
- On the Trump Jr. side, Curtis listed active promotion of family cryptocurrency projects, work on prediction markets, foreign real estate transactions and contracts with defense companies.
- ProPublica published last week that the Bahamas after-party for Trump Jr.'s wedding had been secretly financed by an oligarch associated with Putin, and the president said his son had paid Kremlev back.
- Durbin backed the request, saying corruption at the highest levels of government should never be tolerated and that ignoring the question would make the committee part of a cover up.
- The letter landed about a week after Republican senators fell short of the Democratic votes needed to advance the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act, the industry's market structure bill.
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Why it matters
- decision Grassley now owns the call, and either answer is on the record: he issues subpoenas touching the president's son, or he declines a request made by a member of his own caucus and seconded by the ranking Democrat.
- exposure Sworn testimony about who paid whom would create a document other regulators and private plaintiffs can use, and that reaches firms transacting with the family's token and prediction-market ventures. The letter never names those ventures.
- constraint Democrats negotiating market structure legislation can now point to a Republican-authored conflict-of-interest record. That record raises the price of their votes on the next version of the bill.
- precedent Curtis is about four years from facing voters, so his letter marks where in a Senate term breaking with the party on family-business conflicts is affordable.
Curtis addressed the request to Grassley and Durbin together. Grassley has not responded and no subpoena has been issued so far, according to cryptopolitan's account [16].
Curtis's list mixes two kinds of problem. Promotion of family tokens is an ethics and disclosure question. Prediction markets are a licensing one: those platforms answer to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, and Curtis said the arrangements raise the question of whether foreign individuals have access to the relatives of a sitting president [5].
The gift came first. Bettina Anderson, Trump Jr.'s wife, said on Instagram that the couple had been given the celebration on a private island. She called it a very generous gift from Kremlev. Curtis described Kremlev as a Russian oligarch who had recently traveled with Vladimir Putin's delegation to China [8]. On X on September 22, Curtis wrote: "A toaster is a wedding gift. A private-island party paid for by a Putin-connected oligarch is something else." [6]
The two names in the request carry different levels of risk. Curtis wants Hunter Biden subpoenaed over business dealings in China and Ukraine while his father was in office or seeking it, CBS News reported [13]. Joe Biden pardoned his son in December 2024. Hunter Biden has denied involving his father in his business dealings [14]. Durbin noted that Hunter Biden has already testified under oath to Congress while Trump Jr. has not [12].
For a counterparty holding a contract with one of these ventures, I think the exposure is the transcript. Sworn answers about who paid whom become a document that other regulators and plaintiffs can cite. The counter-thesis is cheaper and may well be right. Curtis is a first-term senator with no election until 2030 [2], about four years of distance from voters [17]. He is writing to a chairman whose party, in Curtis's own words, "nearly wore out the subpoena machine" investigating Hunter Biden's foreign relationships [6]. Cryptopolitan described him as asking questions his own party has avoided [18].
An investigation would help "to establish the facts, determine if there are relevant ethics, disclosure, or anti-corruption laws applicable, and identify what steps are needed to reform the role of the office to prevent its use for personal gain", Curtis said [7].
What to watch
- Whether Grassley brings the subpoenas to a committee vote or lets the letter sit unanswered.
- Whether a second Republican signs on to Curtis's request, or he remains the only one.
- Whether the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act returns for a vote, and what disclosure conditions Democrats attach to their votes.