As President Donald Trump and his sons rake in money from cryptocurrencies, defense contracts and investments from abroad, some Republican lawmakers concede that someone should really look into the family’s potential self-enrichment.
Someone else, that is.
Some of the most vocal Republican critics of former President Joe Biden — including lawmakers who once floated impeachment over his son Hunter Biden’s position on the board of a Ukrainian energy company — have little to say about the Trump family’s far more lucrative and direct financial gains.
And while Republicans sounded open to someone investigating the Trump family’s finances — whether it be Democrats, watchdog groups or the media — Republicans have made it clear they do not see it as their job.
“I’m sure you guys are going to investigate all that,” Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., told MS NOW. “Knock yourselves out.”
Johnson’s laissez-faire response is a striking reversal from his rhetoric about the Biden family.
The Wisconsin Republican spent years railing against Biden, alleging corruption. He helped release an 87-page report in September 2020, concluding that Hunter Biden “cashed in on Joe Biden’s vice presidency,” though it fell short of finding wrongdoing by Joe Biden himself.
In a March 2023 Fox Business interview, Johnson called the Bidens “a thoroughly corrupt family,” seeking to “peddle the Biden name and peddle their influence all over the world, hoovering up dollars all over the world.”
In 2025, Johnson was rewarded with the chairmanship of the Investigations Subcommittee under the Senate’s Homeland Security panel, a prime spot to dig into possible corruption. But with Trump in office, Johnson’s investigative focus has shifted elsewhere. Of the subcommittee’s eight hearings since Johnson became chairman, five have focused on Covid-19 and vaccines, two on broader healthcare debates and one on wildfires.
When asked specifically if he planned to look into Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump’s profits from defense contracts or their investments in a Kazakhstan mining venture, Johnson told MS NOW, “It’s something journalists will look into.”
They have.
Journalists have documented wide-ranging investments by the Trump family that may benefit from the president’s policies. Trump’s two eldest sons are linked to investments in at least 10 defense firms that have drawn about $3.7 billion in federal funds since Trump took office.
The New York Times reported that Eric and Don Jr. had ownership stakes in an investment firm that became involved in a Kazakhstan tungsten mining venture, for which the president urged approval.
And The Wall Street Journal reported that the Trump family’s World Liberty Financial secured $500 million in investments from United Arab Emirates royals for a cryptocurrency venture, months before Trump outlined a plan to approve semiconductor chip sales to the UAE.
The contrast is particularly striking because many of these same Republicans spent years arguing that the Biden family’s financial ties demanded congressional scrutiny — even when they could not establish wrongdoing.
Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, chair of the House Judiciary Committee, flirted with impeaching Biden over the allegation that he, as vice president in 2016, urged the firing of a Ukrainian prosecutor to protect Burisma — the energy company his son worked for. Jordan helped release a 291-page report in August 2024 alleging “impeachable conduct.”
But now, Jordan is far less verbose.
When asked about Trump’s sons profiting off defense contracts, the Kazakhstan mining venture, the UAE stablecoin funds and the general similarities to his concerns about Hunter Biden, Jordan repeatedly told MS NOW he had not “looked at it.”
In a November 2022 hearing, Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, called the Burisma issue “official corruption from the then-vice president.” But this July, when asked about Trump’s sons, he told MS NOW, “I don’t have concerns on that front.”
In January 2023, Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, outlined “very legitimate questions” on Fox News about Biden’s “ties to China, his ties to Burisma, his ties to Ukraine.”
“We need to know the truth because it’s affecting our policy right now,” Roy said. And yet, in July, Roy told MS NOW he had not looked into the Trump family investments.
“I haven’t studied all that,” Roy said. “Look, I think, you know, there’s a lot of people and oversight groups that look at all that stuff. And everybody should be treated the same, so we should look at all that, for everybody.”
Roy touted his support for a congressional stock trading ban, a bipartisan anticorruption measure passed earlier this year, though the law only applies to members of Congress and not the president or other members of the executive branch.
Rep. Mark Alford, R-Mo., also cited his support for the ban on congressional stock trading when asked about the Trump family investments. He said he had not looked into the details of the Trump family’s investments, but he still had a conclusion on the issue.
“I’m not concerned about it,” Alford said.
When asked if a stock trading ban should apply to the president and his family, Alford said he prefers not to apply constraints to the executive branch.
“We operate under our Article One authority. They operate under their constitutional authority,” Alford told MS NOW. “I’m not going to tell them how to do their job, and they’re not going to tell me how to do my job.”
But again, Alford struck a far different tone in a December 2023 Fox Business interview when he was discussing Burisma issues and called Biden “the most corrupt president we have had.”
Democrats, of course, disagree with Alford’s assertion that Congress should stay out of the president’s business. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., has proposed the creation of a new anticorruption agency tasked with investigating self-dealing by the executive branch.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and Rep. Robert Garcia, D-Calif., have sought answers about Trump’s stock trades, detailing 30 possible conflicts of interest. And Rep. Joe Morelle, D-N.Y., is leading a House task force focused on anticorruption proposals.
But according to many Republicans, there is no reason to look into Trump’s potential self-dealing.
Rep. Carlos Gimenez, R-Fla., called for impeaching Biden in an August 2023 Fox Business interview.
“I knew he was crooked from the get-go,” Gimenez said of Biden. “It’s not coincidental. His son was making $1,000,000 a year.”
And yet, in July, Gimenez said Congress should only look into the Trump family finances if there are problems with investigations by other, unspecified organizations.
“There are investigative agencies that are going to look into that, so you know, let them do their job and if there’s a problem, then maybe we get involved,” Gimenez told MS NOW.
When pressed specifically on the $500 million in UAE funds for the Trump family’s cryptocurrency venture, Gimenez pleaded ignorance.
“I am the last guy you want to talk to about crypto,” Gimenez said. He added, “It’s still kind of a mystery to me of how it all works.”
Rep. Jeff Van Drew, R-N.J., said he is open to Congress looking into the issue, but he downplayed any concerns about the Trump family. “Congress looks into everything,” Van Drew said.
“I don’t know if we’ve gotten all the facts on that and know what, in reality, is totally true,” Van Drew told MS NOW when asked about the Trump sons’ investments in defense contracts and the Kazakhstan mining venture. “So I am always concerned about anything that deals with government, to make sure that everything is appropriate. And I have seen nothing yet that says that anything is wrong or anything has been done illegally.”
Van Drew was less circumspect in January 2024 in a Fox Business interview, when he said the Burisma issue was “about selling the presidency, selling the vice presidency.”
“The whole Biden family doesn’t think the rules apply to them, only to the paeans who are working every day,” Van Drew said then. “I’m tired of it. I’m sick of it.”
And then there was Rep. Lauren Boebert. The Colorado Republican offered perhaps the bluntest explanation for the double standard.
Like many of her Republican colleagues, she spoke forcefully about possible conflicts of interest for the Biden family, accusing Biden in September 2023 of “lying to the American people about his shady foreign business deals” and calling for impeachment.
But unlike other GOP lawmakers, Boebert dropped the pretense of ignorance when asked about the Trump family investments.
“The president doesn’t talk to you,” Boebert told MS NOW when asked about the Trump sons’ investments. “Why should I?”
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