Something Old, Something New, Something Borrowed, Something…Purchased?

MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 28, 2026

Where do private benefits meet public responsibility?

The offspring of a sitting U.S. president is getting married. Elaborate plans are made, and expensive gifts begin arriving. The generosity is becoming a matter of public discussion, and rightfully so. When one of your parents runs the country, people might ask if a gift-giver wants more than a polite thank-you card.

If you’re thinking, “Ah, yes, Donald Trump Jr.’s over-the-top wedding and its Russia connections.” Well…we’ll get to him.

The offspring in this case is Alice Roosevelt, and the wedding occurred 120 years ago. Lavish gifts arrive from foreign governments, and President Theodore Roosevelt (the father of the bride) demands they stop. Cuba is insistent and sends a pearl necklace along with a letter expressing affection for Alice and gratitude to her dear old dad. This may be one of the few instances when a wedding gift and its connection to a public office is laid so bare.

Of course, we can now look at the President’s son and the wealthy businessman’s representative picking up his rather substantial tab. As Teddy Roosevelt knew, such largesse forces outsiders to question whether it might help the businessman secure something from the American leader. Naturally, the President’s son might dispute this and insist that his private friendships are not a relevant public issue.

No, we’re still not at Donald Trump, Jr.

In this case, it’s Elliott Roosevelt, the son of Franklin D. Roosevelt; it is 1947, and Senate hearings are scrutinizing a relationship between eccentric millionaire Howard Hughes and the President’s son. Hughes had financed hospitality-related expenses for Elliott, an Army Air Forces officer, during WWII.

In this story, no letter itemized what the generosity was intended to mean. Instead, Senate testimony indicated that some expenses attributed to Elliot actually applied to others. At the heart of it: Roosevelt had recommended a Hughes reconnaissance aircraft during the war, and it raised eyebrows along with questions and concerns.

And both Roosevelt stories raise the question: Where do private benefits meet public responsibility?

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1787

This concern wasn’t something new and unexpected. In fact, it was so expected that Americans were drafting rules around it before drafting the Constitution we use today. The Articles of Confederation (adopted in 1777 and effective in 1781) specifically barred officeholders from accepting gifts from foreign states or rulers.

Ten years later, during the Constitutional Convention of August 1787, Charles Pinckney introduced protections for American officers against external influences. His concern was simple: personal obligations might easily interfere with duties owed to the country.

The outcome was the Foreign Emoluments Clause. This states that any officials covered by the rule must obtain Congressional permission to accept gifts or certain other benefits from foreign governments. It is designed to work before a gift creates an obligation. The Constitution effectively inserts an entire branch of government into the conversation as the ultimate safeguard against foreign influence.

There’s an obvious weakness: the families and households of those officials weren’t included. So, in 1966, Congress honed in on the details and created the Foreign Gifts and Decorations Act. Today, it specifically includes spouses and dependents. It permits those covered to accept valuable gifts from foreign governments if refusing could cause diplomatic problems. There’s a catch to it, though, and it is that those valuable gifts automatically become U.S. property.

At last, the law addressed the family connection, rather than leaving it to any individual to determine what was “appropriate” where gifts were concerned.

Except it doesn’t cover the independent adult offspring of officials. And a gift from someone who is French, Chinese, or Russian is not automatically a gift from that country’s government. What matters is whether a gift-giver was acting on a government’s behalf. Such distinctions mean we can’t see an expensive gift and say “that’s illegal.” But, it doesn’t mean Congress has to ignore it, either.

We cannot use the Constitution to pose the questions. In fact, the Constitution limits what we can even ask. In 1957, in Watkins v. United States, the Supreme Court explained that Congress has no general license to expose private affairs. An inquiry requires a legitimate congressional purpose and respect for individual rights. Examining whether gift laws need to change would provide a reason to investigate. Digging into someone’s private life would not.

And all of that brings us to Donald Trump Jr.’s recent, lavish wedding. It was reportedly underwritten to a significant degree by Umar Kremlev, a Russian businessman who heads the International Boxing Association and has close ties to Vladimir Putin. His generosity went unknown until ProPublica broke the story on September 14, 2026.

According to their reports, Kremlev contributed hundreds of thousands of dollars to the three-day affair. Publicly, the Trumps have stated Kremlev hosted two nights of celebrations, and that he did so as a personal friend, just giving a gift. Four days after the story broke, the President said the money had been repaid, but as of September 18, no verification of that repayment had been provided.

Why this matters is simple: Kremlev’s organization had publicly pursued help and cooperation from the Trump administration in January 2025. In an open letter that year, the International Boxing Association asked the administration to investigate boxing’s exclusion from the 2028 Olympic program. The letter also proposed cooperation between the IBA and the administration to bring IBA World Boxing Championships back to the U.S. (After effectively placing boxing in limbo in the Olympics, the IOC brought boxing back in March 2025, but under World Boxing instead of the IBA.)

So Kremlev’s organization reached out with a specific request, and though boxing returned to the Games, the IBA remained outside of the Olympic governing role it had lost in 2023.

That happened a full year before the wedding. Why would this create concerns around influence or favors? A gift can warrant scrutiny even if the giver receives nothing in return.

Perhaps that is why, on September 21, Utah Republican Senator John Curtis sent a letter to Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley and Ranking Member Dick Durbin. He was calling for “an investigation into the use of presidential family relationships for private financial benefit, preferential treatment, or access by domestic and foreign interests.”

An investigation into the use of presidential family relationships for private financial benefit, preferential treatment, or access by domestic and foreign interests.

SENATOR JOHN CURTIS, SEPTEMBER 21, 2026

And he didn’t point exclusively towards Donald Trump, Jr., but also to Hunter Biden (son of former U.S. President Joe Biden), indicating that both men should be subpoenaed to testify about their past “business dealings, relationships with foreign individuals and entities, gifts or other benefits they have received, and any instances in which their relationship to the President was invoked or understood to provide value.”

His letter’s stated purposes include establishing facts, determining the laws that apply, and identifying needed reforms. That last one is the one that matters most. Congress can dig into whether its safeguards need a little updating, and it can do so without first going after someone suspected of breaking past them.

So it comes back to the seemingly simple question: Where do private benefits meet public responsibility?

A president’s family is entitled to a private life, including lavish weddings. But the American people have an interest in whether someone picking up the tab expects the government to return the favor. Calling something a wedding present doesn’t answer that question, any more than asking it demonstrates a crime.

Kremlev’s ties to Vladimir Putin give those questions another dimension: whether generosity toward a sitting president’s family could give a foreign government a way to exert influence.

Senator Curtis has requested an inquiry - getting it to happen is another matter. In his letter, he calls out partisan politics, and says that congressional oversight doesn’t “begin and end when control of the White House changes hands.”

Americans knew influence would be a problem even before there was a presidency, and in their wisdom, they created mechanisms to adjust the rules as experience exposed their limits. In his letter, the senator specifically describes this as “an obligation to pursue credible concerns wherever they lead and without regard to party.”

That includes a wedding party. Regardless of who’s writing the thank-you notes, they shouldn’t be signing for the rest of us.

Faithfully,