“Investigating What?”: Todd Blanche Brushes Off Trump Jr.’s Wedding

Attorney General Todd Blanche won’t examine the Russian ties to Donald Trump Jr.

Umar Kremlev, a Russian oligarch, spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to make Trump’s lavish destination wedding a reality, ProPublica reported Monday.

The expenses footed by Kremlev included a $100,000 nightly rental of a private island in the Bahamas, as well as an estimated $70,000 fireworks display. Kremlev’s team also assisted Trump in coordinating the evening.

And Kremlev isn’t just anybody in Russian politics. He’s a close ally to President Vladimir Putin, and his decision to shoulder a huge portion of the wedding placed him within degrees of President Donald Trump’s orbit. Kremlev also attended the wedding reception alongside a cadre of Russian guests.

But none of that is of any interest to Blanche, who shrugged off the concerning connection at the White House Tuesday.

“So I—the president’s already talked about it,” Blanche said dismissively when asked by a reporter as to whether or not the Justice Department would examine Trump’s relationship with Kremlev.

“The president’s son has said that he’s a very close friend, and that he accepted a gift on the weekend of his wedding,” Blanche said. “So I don’t—I’m not sure when you say, ‘Am I investigating’—am I investigating what?”

“And when you say, ‘This person is a friend of Putin,’ I don’t even know if that’s true or not,” continued America’s attorney general—the country’s chief law enforcement officer. “I don’t know this person either, I don’t have any information about it.”

Mere weeks before the late-May wedding, Putin personally awarded Kremlev Russia’s Order of Friendship, recognizing Kremlev’s ability to improve international cooperation with Russia via his involvement with the International Boxing Association.

The IBA is, in its own right, riddled with scandal. ProPublica reported that the entity was financed by the Russian state-owned oil company Gazprom, and that the wedding payments originated from an IBA-affiliated entity in Dubai.

Kremlev—a towering, bald-headed man that speaks little English—stood out like a sore thumb at the party, according to insiders that spoke with ProPublica. About 18 people participated in the wedding ceremony (which Kremlev did not attend, per his spokesman), while roughly 50 people (including Kremlev and multiple other Russians) attended the intimate reception. Those that spoke with ProPublica said that Kremlev and his associates mostly stuck to themselves, speaking Russian.

Yet Trump Jr. explained on his podcast that the whole event was “really small” and made up of “close friends.”

“Tried to keep it really tight. And it was just awesome,” he said.

That would suggest Trump had either developed a close tie to a Putin ally, or had unwittingly invited one to his own wedding.

Kremlev’s press office told ProPublica that the two men have a “friendly relationship” and first met “a couple of years ago.” Yet even Trump younger brother Eric Trump was completely unaware of Kremlev’s identity.

“Eric has absolutely no clue who this person is, nor has never heard his name,” a spokesperson for Eric told ProPublica.

President Trump called into the Kennedy Center’s board of trustees meeting Tuesday to yell at trustee and Democratic Representative Joyce Beatty.

The call came in before the board voted to close the center indefinitely, ostensibly for repairs, and just after a federal judge blocked Trump from putting his name on the building or sneakily renaming the plaza near the building after himself.

An unnamed board member described Trump’s phone call as “fucking crazy” to CNN,  while another source told the news outlet that Trump screamed throughout the call. Beatty, who is part of legal efforts to keep Trump’s name off of the building, told him that his efforts have left the venue underwater with debt.

Trump and the board, made up of mostly his handpicked appointees, insist that the center will collapse, physically and financially, if the president isn’t allowed to take over the center and put his name on it.

Hours after the court decision, Trump declared in a Truth Social post that the building would close “immediately” but that “Renovation and Reconstruction, which is a very large and complex job, cannot begin until such time as the D.C. Circuit rules on the Board’s approved name.” He also claimed that he has already raised $17 million to put into the center.

Trump has repeatedly been told in federal court that he needs approval from Congress to make his desired changes to the center, which should theoretically be easy with Republicans currently controlling the House and Senate. But he refuses to listen to those rulings and wants to forcibly take over the venue, with intervention from the Supreme Court if necessary, even though his involvement has killed the center’s ticket sales and fundraising while pushing away performers.

FBI Director Kash Patel needed a cheat sheet of attacks in order to dodge tough questions from Senator Dick Durbin Tuesday.

It’s no wonder Patel refused to answer Democratic lawmakers’ questions at a Senate Judiciary Committee’s hearing—his notes had nothing to do with his role leading the FBI!

A Reuters photographer captured an image of a document Patel referred to during questioning. It was titled “DURBIN INFO” and listed a series of bullet points containing opposition research on Durbin and his wife.

It’s a little ironic that Patel was planning to make things so personal, considering that the FBI director repeatedly refused to answer any questions involving his use of government resources for his 26-year-old girlfriend.

It appears that Patel didn’t get a chance to use his opposition research on the Illinois Democrat—instead, he offered a series of obstinate nonanswers.

Patel refused to provide information in response to Durbin’s questions about the FBI’s failure to investigate potential civil rights violations committed by federal agents during the Department of Homeland Security’s “Midway Blitz” operation in Chicago. Patel also denied making false statements following the horrific shooting of Marimar Martinez.

“I can tell you that she’s never been charged with a crime after being shot five times—” Durbin said.

“You want her to be charged for being shot?” Patel asked incredulously.

Patel responded incoherently to Durbin’s questions about lowering the standards for applicants at the FBI, claiming he’d done so in order to, among other things, protect the human “victims” of bestiality. He also dodged questions about dragging his feet on releasing documents related to Jeffrey Epstein, and refused to weigh in on the allegations of corruption against Corey Lewandowski.

There was once a time when government officials preparing to testify before the Senate might’ve brought notes on their work—but not anymore. In the Trump administration, officials mostly just prep tips on how to get at Democratic lawmakers. Former Attorney General Pam Bondi tried the same thing and, well, we all know how that went.

Outgoing Republican Representative Thomas Massie on Tuesday introduced eight articles of impeachment against Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth for “high crimes and misdemeanors” regarding his handling of the Trump administration’s war on Iran—calling it “unlawful at its inception.”

Massie attacked Hegseth for “waging the Iran war despite no declaration of war, statutory authorization, attack on the United States, or imminent threat,” and continuing to attack Iran after the war powers resolution expired. The articles of impeachment also cite Hegseth’s suppression of Democratic Senator Mark Kelly’s right to free speech, initiating an unlawful war in Yemen (remember Signalgate?), and “ignoring laws that minimize civilian casualties.”

Massie specifically noted Hegseth’s bombing of the Shajareh Tayyebeh Elementary School in Minab, Iran, in February—a brutal attack that killed 120 schoolchildren and 36 other civilians.

“By directing the Department of Defense in a manner that foreseeably dismantled the safeguards necessary to distinguish civilian objects from military objects, Secretary Hegseth thereby affected the murder of civilians, and abused the trust of men and women under his command by requiring them to conduct military operations within a targeted and legal review system that he had deliberately degraded,” Massie said during a Tuesday House session.

Massie made his resolution privileged, meaning the House must vote on it in two days—if Speaker Mike Johnson doesn’t send everyone home early.

Senator Chuck Grassley had an explosive outburst at Senator Cory Booker Tuesday, after the Democratic lawmaker grilled FBI Director Kash Patel over his incompetence.

Appearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee’s hearing on FBI oversight, Patel faced tough questions from Democratic lawmakers—especially Booker—and by the end, Grassley couldn’t handle it anymore.

Grassley provided enormous cover to Patel after he refused to answer Booker’s questions about the FBI’s efforts to investigate Elizabeth Williamson, the New York Times journalist who reported on the SWAT team assigned as Patel’s 26-year-old girlfriend’s security detail. Booker accused Patel of lying before a grand jury that no journalist was under investigation.

“Mr. Chairman—Chairman, I’m asking yes or no questions about activities of the FBI, that as a matter of oversight I have the right to do,” Booker said to Grassley.

“I’m not going to—normally I would say, but this seems to be a personal thing to him,” Grassley replied. Booker continued to outline Patel’s efforts to attack the press and subpoena reporters, and accused him of stonewalling the committee.

When Booker asked about Patel’s promise to investigate Donald Trump’s crude birthday card to alleged sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, Grassley interjected to grant Patel extra time to respond. As the FBI director proceeded to ramble about hunting down leakers of classified information, Booker tried to steer Patel back on topic, and Grassley informed the Democrat that his time was up.

As a frustrated Booker proceeded to give his closing remarks, Grassley continued to interrupt, even banging his gavel.

“We don’t have an FBI director, we have a lackey here. Who’s using govern—and frankly, he’s not even a good lackey, he’s an incompetent lackey. He’s like an 18-year-old kid who wants to join a fraternity that he could never be a member of. Doing keg stands and chugging with friends,” Booker said. “He’s an embarrassment to the agency and wouldn’t qualify, even, to be an FBI agent.

“What is bad is not just that we have a rogue FBI agent intimidating reporters, what’s bad is that we have Republicans in the Senate enabling him to go without any objective oversight or transparency or accountability!” Booker added.

Grassley accused Booker of expecting to receive special treatment. “You don’t show much respect for your chairman,” he said. “Yeah, you’ve gone on now for three minutes—”

“I have utter respect for you, in fact I have love for you,” Booker said. “This is why I know this is not who you are. You are not holding this witness in an objective way to answer the questions that are given to him by Democratic senators, yet he insults them time and time again.”

Booker criticized Patel for speaking disrespectfully to Vermont Senator Peter Welch, and insisted he had a right to ask about how the FBI director was spending money on his girlfriend. As Grassley attempted to pass questioning to Senator Darline Graham, a protester appeared, spurring Booker and Patel to continue to exchange barbs.

Again, Grassley reserved his admonishments for his Democratic colleague. “Are you going to interfere with Senator Graham asking her questions too? Too, as well? Or are you done now?” the Iowa Republican shouted. “Are you ready to shut up?!”