Don Jr.’s Hunting Trip Exposes Dangerous Friendship With Putin Ally

Donald Trump Jr. went on a remote hunting trip in Mongolia with Umar Kremlev, a Russian oligarch in President Vladimir Putin’s inner circle, the Financial Times reported Tuesday. President Donald Trump’s oldest son spent two days traveling with Kremlev in August. A guide told the outlet that during the trip, Trump Jr. killed one Altai argali, an endangered sheep valued for its large horns. News of the hunting trip follows a bombshell report that Kremlev dropped hundreds of thousands of dollars on Trump Jr.’s wedding in May. Kremlev is president of the International Boxing Association, which is financed by Gazprom, a Russian state–owned energy company. Kremlev has extensive ties to Putin: The Russian president has positioned Kremlev as a central figure in the sports betting industry and chosen one of his companies to run the national lottery. In 2023, Putin nationalized Russia’s largest car dealership company—and Kremlev promptly became its owner. Kremlev is also involved in a sports education organization called Healthy Fatherland, which has been sanctioned by Ukraine for allegedly abducting and relocating Ukrainian children.After the trip concluded, Trump attended dinner with Mongolia’s President Ukhnaagiin Khürelsükh. A government spokesperson posted on social media that the two had discussed relations between the United States and Mongolia, as well as potential business opportunities. The post was removed soon after, and Trump’s spokesperson claimed it was an informal meeting where they discussed the outdoors. Khürelsükh’s spokesperson said, “They did not discuss politics or official visits.”Trump’s spokesperson separately stated that the first son has “a personal friendship, not a business relationship,” with Kremlev. But intelligence experts warned the Financial Times that the relationship still posed a major risk.“It really doesn’t matter if people have the most above board intentions,” Holden Triplett, who served as counter-intelligence director on the National Security Council during Donald Trump’s first administration, told the outlet. “The moment the Russian security and intelligence services figure out someone has a relationship with anyone of high value, they will try to weaponize that.”Read more about Trump’s ties to Kremlev:The Trump administration has just charged James Comey for a third time. The Department of Justice alleged that the former FBI director leaked national defense information 10 years ago, according to court filings made public Monday. The DOJ claims that Comey was the source of national security information that ended up in a 2016 New York Times report.Prosecutors filed a “waiverless criminal information” in Washington, D.C., federal court, allowing them to bring charges without an indictment and extend the 10-year statute of limitations to get one. Comey vowed to fight any charges in a video he posted Monday. “It would almost be funny if it weren’t such an appalling abuse of the Department of Justice, one that we cannot become numb to. Nothing’s changed with me, I’m still innocent, I’m still not afraid of these people, and I still believe in the independent federal judiciary,” Comey said, adding that prosecutors waited too long to bring the charges. Comey: "Well, they're back again. It would almost be funny if it weren't such an appalling abuse of the Department of Justice. One that we cannot become numb to. Nothing's changed with me. I'm still innocent. I'm still not afraid of these people. And I still believe in the independent federal judiciary. And I'm still lucky to have an amazing family and an incredible group of lawyers and will stand up in court and fight the latest. And whatever comes after this, the next couple of years are going to be hard for all of us. It's really important that we stand straight and keep the faith in America."— MeidasTouch (@MeidasTouch) October 26, 2026 President Donald Trump still holds a grudge against Comey over the FBI’s investigation into ties between Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign and Russia. He fired Comey in 2017, and in Trump’s second term, the DOJ tried to indict the former director for allegedly lying in a 2020 congressional hearing, only for that case to fall apart because the prosecutor was improperly appointed.Later, federal prosecutors charged Comey for somehow trying to threaten the president’s life with a social media post of seashells on a beach spelling out “86 47.” The government argued that Comey used “86,” a slang term meaning “get rid of,” to say “kill” and used “47” to mean Trump, the forty-seventh president of the U.S. That case remains pending. The new charges came just hours after a judge ruled that Comey’s daughter Maurene, the former assistant U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, was wrongfully terminated in July 2025, and ordered the DOJ to reinstate her with back pay. No reason was given for her dismissal, although her last name may have been a factor. Read about the Comey family:Ohio gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy is struggling to book venues in his home state just days before the midterms, amid growing backlash to his unreasonably cruel attack ad against Democratic opponent Amy Acton.Two Ohio restaurants—Elliot’s Wood Fired Kitchen and The Old Dog Ale House & Brewery—have canceled events with the Ohio Republican Party featuring Ramaswamy after he released and then doubled down on his advert featuring Acton’s mother, Donna Arthur. An event the party was supposed to host on Tuesday now lists “to be announced” as the location.The ad features Arthur accusing her daughter of lying about how she was raised. But Arthur lost custody of Acton after her husband, Cledith “Bud” Arthur, was arrested for raping Acton when she was just 12 years old. Bud skipped bail and left town with Acton’s mother, who stayed married to him until his death. Now she is being platformed by Ramaswamy, calling her daughter who survived years of sexual abuse a liar on camera.That cruelty is negatively impacting Ramaswamy’s campaign. An anonymous Ohio Republican even told Zeteo that they were “getting calls that people don’t want him there.” Other venues that hosted Ramaswamy over the weekend have been flooded by one-star reviews on Google.Aside from the restaurants, Ramaswamy has been rebuked by every living governor of Ohio, Democrat and Republican, for the ad—which has continued to run. Former Republican Governor Mike DeWine said that it was “wrong” to run the ad last week and urged the Ramaswamy campaign to take it down.Even still, Ramaswamy, President Trump, and Vice President JD Vance have continued to defend the decision to run the ad, while Acton’s brother Philip Stearns lambasted the campaign last week.“It’s not surprising that Vivek Ramaswamy has stooped to such a despicable low as to attempt to turn the sexual abuse Amy endured at twelve years old from our birth mother’s husband into a political talking point,” Stearns said. “After he was arrested and Amy and I were removed from their custody, our birth mother stayed married to Amy’s rapist until he died. This desperate, disgusting attack reveals exactly who Vivek Ramaswamy is at his core—a pathetic excuse for a man who is willing to hurt anyone as long as it gets him what he wants.” Vivek Ramaswamy’s dirty political schemes are making history.The Ohio Republican gubernatorial nominee’s boorish ad campaign against Democratic candidate Dr. Amy Acton has inspired one of Ohio’s oldest newspapers, Cleveland’s The Plain Dealer, to break company policy in Acton’s favor.The paper had stated a few months ago it would not make political endorsements, including in the governor’s race. But on Sunday, its editorial board published a statement declaring it stood firmly behind Acton.The weekly’s decision is just the latest in a tsunami of public backlash against Ramaswamy and his team after they aired an advertisement earlier this month that featured Acton’s estranged mother, Donna Arthur. In the ad, Arthur claimed that “Amy has a serious problem.” The MAGA Republicans arranged the cameo despite the fact that Acton had not spoken to her mother since she was 12 years old, and that Arthur abandoned her two children to skip town with her husband, who was indicted for allegedly raping Acton when she was a young girl.“A candidate who uses childhood sexual abuse as a weapon against the person who endured it has crossed a line that Ohioans should defend, whatever their party,” the newspaper’s editorial board wrote.“We are better than this. We have a responsibility to show it,” it continued. “We made our endorsement policy to serve our readers. We cannot let it become a reason to remain silent when we believe Ohio faces a choice this consequential.”Dozens of Republicans—including Ohio Governor Mike DeWine—have since come out against Ramaswamy’s tasteless ad, advising the former Trump official to take it down.Nonetheless, Ramaswamy has repeatedly defended the ad. On Friday, he told the Ohio Capital Journal that the message had “nothing to do with childhood abuse, sexual abuse.”“Our ad was about a consistent track record of Amy Acton telling lies, including during this campaign,” Ramaswamy said.But the voting public has not seen it that way. Protesters have begun to appear outside of Ramaswamy’s speaking engagements. At a campaign event in Strongsville last week, demonstrators held up signs that likened Ramaswamy to a snake: “Nobody slithers lower than Vivek #VileAds,” read one posterboard recorded by the Journal. Others said Ramaswamy “defends child predators,” protects “pedos,” and “exploits child abuse for votes.”The negative rhetoric has begun to materialize in damaging ways for the biotech billionaire. Several Ohio venues canceled Ramaswamy’s speaking events over the weekend, apparently concerned about the fallout should they be affiliated with his drowning reputation.Read more about Ramaswamy:A new rape allegation has been leveled against President Trump in a report released by House Democrats Monday detailing the White House’s cover-up of the Jeffrey Epstein files.Beatrice Keul, a model and former Miss Switzerland, told Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee that Trump violently raped her in a hotel room at his Plaza Hotel in New York in 1993, when she was 24 years old.According to the Democrats’ report, Keul said Trump grabbed her from behind and raped her, which she described as “brutal.” He allegedly tore her dress, bruised her in multiple places, and caused her to bleed. Afterward, she said he sat her on the edge of the bed, repeated promises he had made earlier that his associate, modeling agent Paolo Zampolli, would help her with a U.S. visa and admission to New York University, and made her promise to keep quiet. (Zampolli would later hold roles in both Trump administrations.)“The show must go on,” Trump allegedly told her. Months later, he reached out to her and again promised to help her get a visa and go to NYU, but she declined assistance, according to the report.Previously, the Swiss model told the Daily Mail in 2024 that Trump only attempted to assault her, jumping on top of her and groping her. In that account, she said he backed off after she resisted. “I tried everything I could. Finally, I said, ‘Let’s talk first’ or something like that, then he slowed down,” Keul said in that interview. The Democrats’ report does not mention why Keul decided to change her story.The report states that the assault happened while Keul was in the U.S. for Trump’s American Dream Pageant for 16- to 22-year-olds, and that he introduced himself to her at a press luncheon for the event, where she also met Epstein. The billionaire financier introduced himself as “Jeffrey, Don’s best friend,” spending 10 minutes talking to her while grinning sideways at Trump, who was watching them talk from afar, according to the report. Keul alleges that Epstein also made promises to her, saying, “You know I can take care of you. We organize many parties with Don.”“Flights, accommodations, you don’t have to worry about anything,” Epstein said per the report.The report states that Trump’s promise of NYU admission is part of a pattern of Epstein promising an NYU education to “lure in and then control his victims,” and that Keul would have no way of knowing this when she mentioned Trump’s offer to the Daily Mail in 2024, months before Epstein’s NYU offers were revealed in later public reports.The incident also fits with Epstein’s usual practices, as he often called foreign pageant winners and invited them to visit him in Florida, according to the report. An unnamed assistant to Epstein in the 1990s has reportedly said that “on dozens of occasions in the mid-1990s, the financier instructed her to call a pageant winner from somewhere in the world and invite her to visit him in Florida.”The White House has denied the allegations, with spokesperson Lauren Bis telling HuffPost in an email, “This ‘report’ is nothing more than a desperate attempt by crazed Democrats to distract Americans from the surging Republican momentum driven by President Trump’s historic achievements. The President kicked Jeffrey Epstein out of his club at Mar-a-Lago because he was a creep, and he has been fully exonerated of anything related to Epstein.”