The Republican senator who’s fed up with presidential family sleaze
Sen. John Curtis urges hearings and subpoenas for Donald Trump Jr. and Hunter Biden.
John Curtis is happy, even though he is a U.S. senator. And although his demeanor is as mild as an Indian summer in October, the Republican has done something comparable to poking a puma with a short stick.
After a business career, Curtis became mayor of Provo, Utah’s fourth-largest city, then served three terms in the House. He could be as unhappy as former executives often are when they find themselves waist-deep in the molasses of legislative processes.
Curtis, however, takes seriously the congressional duty to exercise oversight of the executive branch. So, in this second year of his first term, he has written a letter to Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley (R), chair of the Judiciary Committee.
In it, Curtis notes the collapse of public trust in government, and one reason for this: “members of presidential families using their names and proximity to the President to advance private business interests.” The remarkable seediness of the two most recent presidential families has provided a target-rich environment.
There was Hunter Biden. Now there is Donald Trump Jr.’s “acceptance of significant gifts,” including “a lavish wedding afterparty, on a private island,” Curtis writes, provided by a Russian oligarch close to Vladimir Putin. There are also Trump Jr.’s “active promotion of family-backed cryptocurrency ventures, his continued pursuit of international real estate deals involving direct meetings with foreign heads of state, and his reported investments in defense contracting” and “significant financial and advisory ties to prediction market platforms that depend on favorable federal regulatory decisions.”
Curtis’s letter urges Grassley to subpoena these two presidential sons to testify in order to “establish the facts, determine whether existing ethics, disclosure, or anti-corruption laws apply, and identify reforms necessary to prevent the presidency from becoming a vehicle for private enrichment by those closest to it.”
Including, presumably, presidents. The current one in his second term has traded more securities than all members of Congress combined.
The poet Don Marquis (1878-1937) said: “Writing a book of poetry is like dropping a rose petal down the Grand Canyon and waiting for the echo.” Curtis’s letter is like that.
Grassley has spent 51 of his 93 years on Capitol Hill mastering the art of dusty responses to awkward specificities. He replied to Curtis’s letter not with a letter, but with comments to a reporter who posted them on X:
“I think the fact is that it takes time, and if you were going to ask me when you’re going to have a hearing, there’s no way I could answer that today.” And Grassley made this self-refuting promise: “I’m going to take his request seriously and sit down with staff and see what we can do.”