New York
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Three Democratic senators are sounding the alarm about profitable contracts and loans the Pentagon offered to corporations linked to Donald Trump Jr.
In a letter despatched Thursday to Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, the lawmakers – Sens. Elizabeth Warren, Andy Kim and Richard Blumenthal – requested data on whether or not DoD choices to hand out loans and contracts to corporations “associated with the president’s son may have been affected by conflicts of interest.”
“If this is the case, it could mean that the Trump family is profiting from funds appropriated by Congress to keep Americans safe, raising both ethics and national security concerns,” Warren, Kim and Blumenthal wrote in the letter, which was shared first with NCS.
The inquiry from these Democrats highlights the newest in a the laundry listing of battle of curiosity considerations surrounding the Trump household, together with over personal investments made by the president and his business empire’s expansion into nuclear fusion.
After his father, President Donald Trump’s, November 2024 election victory, his son, Trump Jr., introduced plans to join venture capital firm 1789 Capital as a companion.
1789 Capital is thought for investing in conservative-linked companies and merchandise, together with Tucker Carlson’s media firm.
On its X account, the firm describes itself as “Investing in great American companies that are building a country based on Entrepreneurship, Innovation, & Growth.” Many of those investments started throughout the Biden administration.
Once Trump took workplace, corporations backed by the agency inked a flurry of offers with the new administration, the senators wrote of their letter.
An advisor to Donald Trump, Jr., mentioned the agency had no involvement in managing the corporations.
“All of 1789’s investments are passive minority positions in private American companies. 1789 has absolutely zero involvement in the operations of the companies they invest in,” mentioned Arthur Schwartz in an announcement. “Warren and Blumenthal know this but they’re betting that NCS’s reporters and readers are too dumb to understand what those words mean.”
NCS has not independently verified the assertions in the letter. The lawmakers didn’t allege 1789 Capital or Trump Jr. violated any legal guidelines.
Quantum computing, AI and rocket engines
Between April 2025 and November 2025, corporations in 1789 Capital’s portfolio obtained greater than $70 million value of contracts from the Trump administration, the lawmakers wrote, citing data from analysis agency PitchBook.
The letter lists a number of examples of 1789 Capital-backed corporations that have been awarded DoD contracts final 12 months:
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$45 million awarded to synthetic intelligence firm Cerebras Systems in April 2025
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$4.9 million awarded by the Air Force to rocket engine maker Firehawk Aerospace in August 2025
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$10 million awarded to rare-earth magnet producer Vulcan Elements
In November, Vulcan Elements announced a $620 million mortgage from the DoD’s Office of Strategic Capital and $50 million of federal incentives from the Department of Commerce.
As a part of that deal, the firm mentioned the Commerce Department obtained $50 million value of fairness in the firm, whereas the DoD obtained warrants in the firm that give it the possibility to purchase the firm’s inventory at a set value.
In the letter to Hegseth, the lawmakers famous the mortgage was greater than twice as large as Vulcan’s total valuation and represented the largest mortgage ever delivered by the company’s Office of Strategic Capital because it launched in 2022.
In September, the DoD awarded a $12.8 million contract to Unusual Machines, a drone firm the place Trump Jr. serves as an advisory board member and reportedly is a shareholder.
NCS has reached out to the DoD and White House for remark.
Warren, Kim and Blumenthal posed a sequence of questions on the contracts and loans in the letter to Hegseth, together with whether or not there was a aggressive course of for the Vulcan mortgage and an inventory of all calls, conferences and correspondence between DoD officers and Trump Jr. since Election Day 2024.
“We are concerned about the conflicts of interest of President Trump, his family, other administration officials, and any potential favoritism resulting in a waste of taxpayer dollars and a threat to national security,” the lawmakers wrote.
Given that Democrats are at present in the Senate minority, they can not compel a response from Hegseth.
Richard Painter, the prime ethics official beneath former President George W. Bush, instructed NCS the subject raised by the Democratic lawmakers is a “very legitimate concern” and urged lawmakers to study it carefully.
“If there is any favoritism for anyone – contributors, the Trump family or anyone else – that needs to be investigated and exposed,” mentioned Painter, now a professor at the University of Minnesota Law School.
Painter famous that there have been considerations about Pentagon contracts for many years.
“That’s not new. What is new is that I’ve never seen a president’s family be directly involved in the defense industry in this way,” Painter mentioned.