Sign up for Slatest to receive the most in-depth analysis, reviews, and advice out there, delivered to your inbox daily. When news broke that Donald Trump Jr.’s recent wedding was secretly paid for by a Russian oligarch, I had a normal, completely rational response, which was this: I guess Taylor Swift has been vindicated once again. You’ll remember that when Swift got married earlier this year, people were quick to call it the tacky wedding of the year, maybe ever. Swift isn’t an oligarch in her own right, but you know what’s definitely more vulgar than getting married at Madison Square Garden? Getting one of Putin’s cronies to pay your wedding bills. For this and other revelations, we can thank the nonprofit newsroom ProPublica, which on Monday broke the news that a wealthy Russian named Umar Kremlev spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on Trump Jr.’s May wedding to Bettina Anderson. The arrangements included the rental of a private island, a fireworks show and dancers dressed in sailor suits. Kremlev is the head of the controversial International Boxing Association and an associate of Vladimir Putin who, as ProPublica reported, has not known Trump Jr. for long, even though Trump said elsewhere that he only invited close friends to the wedding weekend. For his part, Trump’s brother, Eric Trump, told the media outlet that he had “absolutely no idea” who Kremlev is. Anderson and Trump, in an Instagram caption accompanying a slideshow of wedding weekend photos that communicated how little shame they feel, somewhat confirmed and somewhat denied the allegations. According to the publication, her “dear friend” Kremlev wasn’t even at her royal wedding in the Bahamas on Friday, May 22, because only her family was in attendance (although one important family member was notably absent). It turns out that Trump and Anderson were spending a weekend with friends immediately after the wedding, at which time Kremlev “generously hosted two incredible nights of celebrations” for them, Anderson wrote. “Generosity doesn’t automatically come with an agenda. And sometimes a wedding gift is just a wedding gift.” Let me see if I’m clear on that: Anderson seems to admit that it would be a problem if Kremlev paid for her wedding, but she doesn’t see why it’s a problem that he paid for several events right after her wedding during which her friends and family celebrated her marriage and Anderson wore white, events that almost any reasonable person would describe as wedding parties. I find it strange that Anderson bothers to rate anything. Sure, accepting such a generous gift from a Russian oligarch is blatantly corrupt, but is it beyond the Trump family’s usual level of corruption? Do these people have a line? If so, where is it? As the ProPublica story noted, Trump is worth about $300 million and could have paid for the wedding, so accepting blood money was less a financial issue than an issue of corruption for corruption’s sake. Ian Prasad Philbrick Not even the Supreme Court can stop Trump’s most insidious stunt in the midterms Read more A major artist just started a tour for his political beliefs. Now I have to do the unthinkable. This content is available only to Slate Plus members. AI comes for white-collar jobs. I shudder to think what it will do to nursing. While reading the ProPublica article, I was reminded of a story involving another Trump daughter, Tiffany Trump, her husband, and the promise of an invitation to her wedding in exchange for cash, a deal that never actually materialized. I assumed that story must have been from years ago, but I looked up the dates and, lo and behold, it was only a year ago that the New York Times reported on it, about nine months after Tiffany’s wedding in December 2024. Have we really come this far in such a short time, from whispers that we might take a bribe for a wedding invitation but never did, to letting an oligarch pay for the entire wedding? I don’t think any of this would have happened during the first Trump administration. I hesitate to think what these people who can get away with this will think a year from now. At their own perfectly reasonable wedding, Swift and Kelce ordered personalized handkerchiefs for their party, with their wedding logo and a line from one of Swift’s songs, “Blank Space,” embroidered on them: “So it’ll be forever…” At the time, I called this particular quote “ominous,” and I stand by this particular line. But it really didn’t seem so bad to me after all once I saw Anderson and Trump’s wedding napkins (in their slideshow/defense), which featured a quote from the personification of sinister, Edgar Allan Poe: More than love? Now we know: at least hundreds of thousands of dollars more.
