Washington, Sept 20. (dpa/GNA) – US President Donald Trump, has defended his son Donald Trump Jr, after a Russian oligarch with ties to the Kremlin helped pay for his wedding celebrations.
“It’s totally allowed,” Trump said in the Oval Office on Friday, when asked whether it was appropriate for his son to accept the money.
“But as I understand it, he paid him back,” Trump added. Trump said he had heard that his son had not wanted to accept the money in the first place. “A person that he knows, I guess a friend of his, gave him a wedding party,” the president said. “That’s very common.”
Trump added that he himself had hosted wedding parties for numerous people, including at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida.
Investigative news outlet ProPublica, reported earlier this week that Russian oligarch Umar Kremlev, helped finance wedding celebrations for Trump Jr and his wife Bettina in the Bahamas in May.
Kremlev covered hundreds of thousands of dollars in expenses, according to the report.
Renting one of the private islands used for the celebrations cost around $100,000 per night, while a fireworks display cost about $70,000.
Kremlev is president of the International Boxing Association (IBA) and has close ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
According to ProPublica, Kremlev had met Trump Jr only shortly before the wedding, but attended the celebrations with a larger group of Russian guests.
Trump Jr and his wife have confirmed that Kremlev hosted two nights of celebrations, with Bettina describing them in an Instagram post as an “extraordinarily generous wedding gift from a friend.”
GNA