Republican Sen. John Curtis (R-Utah) has formally called on the Senate Judiciary Committee to investigate the business dealings and foreign relationships of presidential family members, including Donald Trump Jr.
In a letter sent Tuesday, Curtis urged the committee to subpoena Trump Jr. over his connections to foreign individuals and entities, any gifts or benefits he has received, and instances where his relationship to President Donald Trump was used to provide value.
Curtis also called for equivalent scrutiny of Hunter Biden, the son of former President Joe Biden, framing his request as a matter of consistent, bipartisan congressional oversight.
“A Russian oligarch paid for a lavish wedding after-party for Donald Trump Jr., which to me just stinks. It’s corruption. I don’t like it,” Curtis said in a video posted on social media.
Curtis wrote in his letter: “The country should not have to accept one standard for the family of a Republican president and another for the family of a Democratic president.”
On social media Tuesday, Curtis noted that Republicans “nearly wore out the subpoena machine investigating Hunter Biden’s foreign relationships” and argued they “should not unplug it now.”
His letter was addressed to Senate Judiciary Chair Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Ranking Member Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), requesting a probe into any “private financial benefit, preferential treatment, or access” linked to presidential family relationships.
Curtis, who was first elected to the Senate in 2024, vowed upon taking office to not be afraid of disagreeing with Trump, making this formal request to investigate the president’s son a significant escalation of that posture.
Grassley previously worked alongside House Republicans in 2023 and 2024 to investigate whether Hunter Biden leveraged his father’s political position to benefit his own foreign business dealings, an effort that culminated in a report accusing Joe Biden of participating in a conspiracy to enrich his family.
The Biden family dismissed those investigations as politically motivated and denied any wrongdoing, and the House ultimately never voted on articles of impeachment against the former president.
In 2017, Grassley himself led a Senate Judiciary Committee investigation into the Trump campaign’s ties to Russia, including a meeting that Trump Jr. held with Russians in 2016, giving the current request clear historical precedent within the same committee.
Any congressional committee retains the authority to launch an investigation at any time, and Democrats have already signaled plans to scrutinize the Trump family’s financial interests should they regain control of Congress.
