Many posts have analyzed how foreign governments try to influence American politics and policy. Russia and China are prominent influencers.
On May 24, Donald Trump Jr. was celebrating in the Bahamas, as scantily clad dancers in stilettos and sailor caps performed for him and his guests. It was the last night of his wedding, a lavish, three-day party held across a pair of ultra-exclusive private islands. A five-tier funfetti cake had been airlifted in from Florida, and helicopters and seaplanes descended on the islands before guests settled into their oceanfront villas. That night on the beach, Trump Jr. lifted his bride into the air while fireworks launched from a barge over the sea.
“It was everything we dreamed of and more,” his wife later wrote on Instagram.
That dream was heavily funded by a secret benefactor: Umar Kremlev, a Russian oligarch close to President Vladimir Putin.
Kremlev footed the bill for hundreds of thousands of dollars of wedding expenses, according to records reviewed by ProPublica and interviews with three people familiar with the event. The oligarch paid to rent out one of the private islands, where a reception was held and where guests slept. He also covered other big-ticket items, like the fireworks show, and his team helped plan the event. Kremlev is the head of the International Boxing Association, a scandal-plagued sports group that has been financed by the Russian state-owned energy giant Gazprom. The wedding payments came from an IBA-affiliated entity in Dubai that the boxing association uses for financial transactions.
In 2017 Andrew Rafferty reported at NBC:
Donald Trump Jr. met with a Russian lawyer who he believed had damaging information about Hillary Clinton in the midst of the 2016 election — and wrote "I love it" about the prospect of getting his hands on the material, according to emails released Tuesday by the president's eldest son.
The email exchange shows an acquaintance with ties to Russia, music publicist Rob Goldstone, told the son of then-candidate Donald Trump last year that the attorney has "information that would incriminate Hillary and her dealings with Russia and would be very useful to your father."
Although it was clear that Trump Jr. was told by Goldstone he would be meeting with a "Russian government attorney" and that the information was "part of Russia and its government's support for Mr. Trump," Trump Jr. expressed no hesitation in the email chain and, in fact, appeared enthusiastic.
