Tom Emmer is running cover for Don Jr.

On Wednesday, House Majority Whip Tom Emmer dismissed a proposed Senate investigation of the president’s eldest son.

“Some senators want to waste time creating a new Russia hoax and attacking Don Jr.,” Emmer wrote. “Don Jr. is a private citizen and businessman so this unwarranted attack will go nowhere. This partisan distraction is NOT what the American people voted for!”

The request came from Sen. John Curtis, R-Utah. This week he asked Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, and ranking member Dick Durbin, D-Illinois, to investigate “the use of presidential family relationships for private financial benefit.”

Republican Sens. John Cornyn and Thom Tillis, both on the committee, said they would support an inquiry, and Durbin joined them in calling for an investigation. Grassley said he needed more facts.

Curtis asked for subpoenas of both Donald Trump Jr. and Hunter Biden. Emmer’s post mentions only Trump Jr., even though he has frequently called for investigations into Hunter Biden.

What prompted it?

On Sept. 14, ProPublica reported that Umar Kremlev, a Russian businessman close to Russian President Vladimir Putin, paid hundreds of thousands of dollars toward Trump Jr.’s May wedding celebrations in the Bahamas, including a private island rental and fireworks. Trump Jr. and his wife, Bettina, confirmed it and called it a gift from a friend. President Trump said his son had paid Kremlev back.

Curtis summed up his case on X: “A toaster is a wedding gift.”

Beyond the wedding

Kremlev’s payment isn’t the first Trump Jr. deal to draw scrutiny during his father’s second term.

Prediction markets. Curtis’ letter cites Trump Jr.’s ties to the country’s two largest prediction markets. Kalshi pays him as an adviser and gave him equity. 1789 Capital, the venture firm where he is a partner, committed $300 million to a recent funding round for Polymarket, where he is also an adviser. Both companies are ostensibly regulated by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, and the administration has sided with them in court as states — including Minnesota — try to shut them down as illegal gambling.

Defense contracts. Companies backed by 1789 won more than $735 million in federal contracts in 2025, according to the Financial Times. Rare-earth magnet maker Vulcan Elements got a $620 million Pentagon loan three months after 1789 invested. ProPublica reported that the push for the deal came directly from White House trade adviser Peter Navarro; 1789 said it played no role. Unusual Machines, a Florida drone-parts maker that made Trump Jr. an adviser and gave him shares, landed its largest Army order.

Other ventures. The family’s crypto company, World Liberty Financial, sold a 49% stake for $500 million to a firm backed by the United Arab Emirates’ national security adviser four days before the inauguration. And he and his brother Eric Trump bought into a company tied to a $1.6 billion, administration-backed tungsten mining project in Kazakhstan, though the Financial Times found no evidence they knew of the contract when they invested.

What Emmer said about the last president’s son

In November 2023, after Hunter Biden offered to participate in public testimony instead of a closed deposition, Emmer told Fox Business: “If you’ve done nothing wrong, you have nothing to hide.” He added: “And if the Biden family is exonerated, so be it.”

On Dec. 13, 2023, the day Hunter Biden skipped his subpoenaed deposition, Emmer posted: “Hunter Biden’s father may be able to control the DOJ investigation, but the Biden family won’t dictate the terms of Congress’ investigation.” Later that day he voted to formalize the impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden.

On Jan. 17, 2024, Emmer said House Republicans would “hold Hunter Biden’s feet to the fire until we have his testimony.” NPR reported that he added: “No one, not even the president’s son, is above the law.”

In January 2024, Hunter Biden held no office. He was a private citizen and a businessman, much like Don Jr. is officially today.

How partisan is it?

A Republican senator made the request for the Trump Jr. investigation, backed by two Republicans and the ranking Democrat on the committee. A Republican chairman will decide.

“The country should not have to accept one standard for the family of a Republican president and another for the family of a Democratic president,” Curtis wrote.

Where there is a difference

The 2023-24 investigation was formally an impeachment inquiry into a sitting president. Hunter Biden was a witness in it, not its target. The question was whether Joe Biden took official action or benefited from his family’s foreign business, and in December 2023 Emmer said it was “very likely he benefited.” Hunter Biden also defied two subpoenas before sitting for a deposition on Feb. 28, 2024.

None of that applies to Trump Jr. so far. He has not been subpoenaed and no one has alleged that President Trump took official action on Kremlev’s behalf. Sens. Bernie Moreno and Jim Banks argue that Trump Jr. holds no administration role and that there is no evidence he sold access.

Why there is a difference

Most of that difference comes down to who holds power, not what actually happened.

Hunter Biden was a witness in an impeachment inquiry because the House majority in 2023 belonged to the Republican Party. That majority opened the inquiry and issued the subpoenas. Emmer voted for it.

Today, Republicans control the House, the Senate and every committee. Democrats cannot open an inquiry or issue a subpoena. In March, when Democrats on the House Natural Resources Committee moved to subpoena Trump Jr. over the Vulcan deal, Republicans voted to adjourn.

So “no one has subpoenaed him” and “no one has opened an inquiry” are the same fact. Evidence of wrongdoing cannot be found if no one is looking for it. Curtis’ letter asks Republicans to use their power and look. It doesn’t predetermine an outcome. Emmer’s post argues they shouldn’t even look, opposite arguments he’s made in the past, about Hunter Biden.

The same standard

Curtis wants the committee to examine “any instances in which their relationship to the President was invoked or understood to provide value.” That is essentially the question House Republicans asked about the Biden family in 2023.

Emmer, whose reelection opponent this year in the 6th District is Doug Chapin, has applied the “nothing to hide” standard well beyond the Bidens. He said the Clintons should be held in contempt over the Epstein subpoenas, and that Rep. Ilhan Omar’s husband “should be subpoenaed.” This year he has told three interviewers that if Minnesota had nothing to hide, it would hand its voter records to the federal government, even though the Justice Department has lost all 25 of its voter-roll lawsuits against states decided so far, Minnesota’s among them.

His broadcast transcripts and posts show him calling for subpoenas of private citizens. We found none in which he argued, before Wednesday, that a private citizen should be spared congressional scrutiny.

The question

In January 2024, Emmer said no one, not even the president’s son, is above the law. A Republican senator is now asking Congress to apply Emmer’s stated standard to both a Republican and Democratic president’s sons.

Does the majority whip still think it applies when it’s the son of the president of his own party or does it only apply to people across the aisle?