Texas Republican Sen. John Cornyn said he backs a fellow GOP senator’s request for an investigation into Donald Trump Jr. Cornyn was defeated in a primary runoff by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton after President Donald Trump endorsed Paxton. Punchbowl News congressional reporter Laura Weiss noted that Cornyn serves on the Senate Judiciary Committee and that President Trump helped oust him in his primary.
Weiss wrote that Cornyn “joins call for an investigation & issuing subpoena to Donald Trump Jr.,” quoting the Texas senator as saying, “I would support Senator Curtis’ request.” Mediaite contacted Cornyn to confirm the account. He replied, “True.”
According to Mediaite, Cornyn has about 100 days remaining in the Senate following that runoff defeat. Paxton has struggled to keep pace with James Talarico in both polling and fundraising, echoing concerns Cornyn raised earlier in the campaign. Trump and Republican-aligned groups have since committed millions of dollars to the race.
Utah senator sent letter seeking inquiry into Trump Jr. ties and gifts
Sen. John Curtis of Utah, elected in 2024 and not facing voters this year, shared a three-page letter he sent to Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Sen. The push for accountability comes as Cornyn, who lost his Texas primary, has predicted Trump will have the most miserable two years of his life.
Chuck Grassley of Iowa and ranking member Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois. In it, Curtis asked them to look into Trump Jr. He pointed out that the GOP majority “nearly wore out the subpoena machine investigating Hunter Biden’s foreign relationships” and pressed for a similarly intense inquiry into the president’s eldest son.
Curtis wrote on X: “A toaster is a wedding gift. A private-island party paid for by a Putin-connected oligarch is something else. Republicans nearly wore out the subpoena machine investigating Hunter Biden’s foreign relationships. We should not unplug it now. ‘Trust us’ was not enough then, and it…”
Curtis identified Trump Jr.’s relationships “with foreign business figures and the acceptance of significant gifts” as a particular concern, including “a lavish wedding afterparty, on a private island, provided by Russian oligarch Umar Kremlev, who reportedly traveled to China as part of a delegation accompanying Vladimir Putin shortly before giving the gift.” These concerns about foreign gifts and relationships have drawn scrutiny, such as when Trump said his son repaid a Putin-aligned Russian oligarch who funded a Bahamas wedding afterparty.
His letter went on: “These concerns are compounded by Donald 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. This pattern extends to his significant financial and advisory ties to prediction market platforms that depend on favorable federal regulatory decisions being considered by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.”
The letter said those reports raise legitimate questions about foreign access to members of a sitting president’s family and whether such relationships can create actual or perceived expectations of favorable treatment. It also said they may create expectations of a returned favor that would not be in the best interests of the American people or our allies, and could even create national security vulnerabilities.
Curtis asked Grassley and Durbin to have the committee “launch an investigation into the use of presidential family relationships for private financial benefit, preferential treatment, or access by domestic and foreign interests” by subpoenaing both Hunter Biden and Trump Jr. “regarding 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.”
Published: Sep 23, 2026 07:00 am