00:00A Russian oligarch, a close ally of our enemy, Vladimir Putin, a man whose fortune was gifted
00:08to him by Vladimir Putin, paid for, secretly, the private island wedding of the President of
00:17the United States' son. Colleagues, the story broke today that the Trump family has confirmed
00:23that a Russian oligarch, a close ally of Vladimir Putin, a man whose fortune was gifted to him by
00:32Putin, paid for the private island wedding of the President of the United States' son.
00:41I'm here on the floor because I am scared to death that this is all going to start just feeling
00:50normal. Let me say it again. A Russian oligarch, a close ally of our enemy, Vladimir Putin,
00:59a man whose fortune was gifted to him by Vladimir Putin, paid for, secretly, the private island
01:08wedding of the President of the United States' son. The President's son, Donald Trump Jr.,
01:16tried to hide this fact. He posted pictures of his wedding celebration online. There was a public
01:25conversation about whether the President was going to attend or not. But the President's son made no
01:30mention that the whole thing, worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, a private island, was bankrolled
01:40by the Russians. In fact, the only face of the 50 guests that is hidden in the group photo that
01:52you can
01:52look at right now online, the only person's face that's hidden is the oligarch. But he's there
02:00because he secretly paid for the celebration. The Russians paid for the private island. The Russians
02:11paid for the fireworks show. The President's son even put this oligarch in charge of planning the
02:20logistics. This was a Russian party, organized and paid for by someone in Vladimir Putin's inner circle.
02:32This has never happened before in the history of the United States of America. Never before has a foreign
02:42enemy of the United States paid for the family wedding of the President. Why? Because it is naked
02:52corruption in plain view. It is as close to treason as you get, accepting lavish gifts, millions of dollars
03:04in gifts, perhaps, from the enemy of this nation. Let's spend a minute on this oligarch. We just learned
03:14this today. So forgive me if we have scant details. I think we're going to find out a lot more
03:20about this
03:21guy in the coming days and weeks. But his name is Umar Kremlev. He is a convicted criminal. He runs
03:31a
03:31boxing company that is funded by Putin, more specifically by Gasprom, Putin's state-run gas company. He isn't just some
03:42ordinary oligarch. He's one of Putin's favorites. In addition to running this boxing association, he runs the Russian
03:52lottery. He has a monopoly on Russian sports betting. Shortly before financing and attending the Trump wedding,
04:01Kremlev and Putin were together in China. Putin brought him on a really important state visit to China.
04:09Putin has given Kremlev the highest Kremlin honor, the order of friendship. The Ukrainian government has
04:17sanctioned Kremlev because he is part of Putin's inner circle. All of Kremlev's money is Putin's money.
04:26He operates as an arm of Putin, as do all the Putin-made oligarchs. Before today's disclosure
04:36of his secret financing of the Trump wedding, there was no record of Donald Trump Jr. and Kremlev being great
04:44best buddies. Because they aren't. It appears that they just recently met. And shortly after meeting,
04:56this close ally of Vladimir Putin offered to pay for Donald Trump Jr.'s wedding.
05:04Here's what Eric Trump said today. When a reporter asked his office about
05:13Umar Kremlev, this close friend of Donald Trump Jr.'s.
05:19Quote, Eric has absolutely no clue who this person is, nor has he ever heard his name.
05:27This is Eric Trump. Donald Trump Jr.'s brother, his business partner, has never heard the name
05:38of the close associate, the close friend of Donald Trump Jr.'s who paid for his entire wedding.
05:46Why? Because they're not friends.
05:49This is a business deal between the Trump family and the Russian government.
05:55This all fits two patterns. The first is the Trump's family's reliance on Russian support
06:04for their business empire. Donald Trump Jr. said this prior to when his president,
06:10when his father became president. He said in terms of, he's talking about his family's business,
06:16in terms of high end product influx into the United States, Russians make up a pretty disproportionate
06:22cross section of a lot of our assets. Say in Dubai, and certainly with our project in SoHo,
06:29and anywhere in New York, we see a lot of money pouring in from Russia. More recently,
06:38those who have looked at the individuals who are buying Trump's cryptocurrency have noted that there
06:45is evidence that the Trump family's cryptocurrency is backed perhaps heavily by Russian buyers.
06:54But the second and more significant pattern is this. Trump's sons, particularly Donald Jr.,
07:03just brazenly profit off of their access to the White House. Donald Jr., he just basically
07:11stuffs money into his pockets from anybody who wants a favor from his father. And he just gobbles up
07:18government contracts as fast as he can. Don Jr.'s net worth was $50 million before his father's second term.
07:30In the first year that Trump was president, in his second term, Don Jr.'s net worth didn't double,
07:39it didn't triple, it didn't quadruple. It grew by six times in one year. $50 million, a year later, $300
07:50million.
07:51At least 13 companies tied to the Trump brothers have captured $1.8 billion in long-term federal
08:00contracts and commitments, and $103 million in direct cash from the Trump administration.
08:10Five of those companies got their first government contract ever after the Trump sons invested.
08:19That's corruption. It doesn't matter whether this is a Republican administration or a Democratic
08:25administration. Now, you could be offended at all of that, but you might say, well, this isn't that.
08:33This isn't Trump Jr. taking money from the taxpayers. This is just him taking money from the Russians.
08:40Isn't that better than him taking money from taxpayers? Of course it isn't. Because Putin doesn't
08:46pay for a wedding just to be nice. This is an arrangement in plain sight. Donald Trump has done
08:54a 180-degree turn in U.S. policy on the Russia-Ukraine war. He has cut off funding from Ukraine.
09:02Even
09:02after we appropriate money, he refuses to spend it illegally. As recently as this weekend, he says
09:11publicly that it's Ukraine's fault that the war continues, not Russia. In addition, Trump has
09:18suspended sanctions on the export of Russian oil and gas, which, by the way, specifically helps Gazprom,
09:24the company that funds Kremlin, Trump has become one of Putin's most important allies. And so, like
09:33everything else in Trump's corrupt world in his second term, it just becomes this mutually beneficial
09:42deal. Trump withholds support for Ukraine, pads the pocket of the Russian governments with sanctions
09:49relief, and the Russians funnel money to the family. Doesn't everybody see this? Shouldn't everyone
09:58here be outraged today that the President of the United States' son just had his wedding,
10:05his multi-million dollar wedding paid for by the Russians? And he admits it?
10:13I know that there are a lot of Republicans in the Senate who are aghast
10:19at what Trump has done to abandon Ukraine. And I know there are a lot of Republicans here who are
10:24furious
10:25at this spiraling corruption. I don't know that there's a single member of this body, Republican or
10:31Democrat, who'd go on TV tonight and defend the Russian government paying for the Trump family's
10:38private island wedding. But at some point, there just has to be a bottom that the United States
10:45Senate unanimously recognizes. Does any Republican here think that you would say nothing if Hunter Biden's
10:54wedding or Malia Obama's graduation party was financed by Iranian allies of the Ayatollah?
11:01You guys would shut this place down if that were to happen. And of course, you can't even imagine
11:10that happening under a different administration, because despite all the histrionics over the Biden
11:16crime family, never before in the history of this country have we had a White House where the financing
11:22of a family wedding by a foreign adversary would pass as a minor scandal that barely makes the front pages.
11:31Just because the corruption happens so routinely that to some it feels normal, it doesn't mean that it is.
11:41If we don't on a bipartisan basis here in the Senate draw a line in the sand soon,
11:50it will be the end of our republic. It just will be. I yield the floor.
11:57I yield the floor.
11:57I yield the floor. I yield the floor. I yield the floor. I yield the floor. I yield the floor.
11:59I yield the floor.
