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# SENATOR JOHN CURTIS: THE MAN — THE LEGEND — THE TURNCOAT?
- URL: https://the-ff-express.ghost.io/senator-john-curtis-the-man-the-legend-the-turncoat-has-john-curtis-earned-the-credibility-to-invoke-one-standard-now-based-on-how-consistently-he-himself-applied-that-standard-when-the/
- Published: 2026-09-28T23:09:20.000Z
- Updated: 2026-09-28T23:09:20.000Z
- Author: Cristina Marin

### Has John Curtis earned the credibility to invoke “one standard” now, based on how consistently he himself applied that standard when the other president’s family was under scrutiny?

John Curtis wants answers.  
Good. So do we.

On September 22, 2026, the Republican senator from Utah sent a letter to Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley and Ranking Member Dick Durbin asking Congress to investigate whether presidential-family relationships have been used for **private financial benefit, preferential treatment or access**. Curtis specifically asked the committee to subpoena Donald Trump Jr. and Hunter Biden regarding their business dealings, relationships with foreign individuals and entities, gifts and other benefits, and instances in which their relationship to a president may have been invoked—or understood—to provide value. 

Days earlier, Curtis had already stepped into the spotlight after reporting that Russian businessman Umar Kremlev financed lavish portions of Donald Trump Jr.’s wedding celebrations. Curtis publicly called the reported arrangement “**corruption**.” Then his September 22 letter went substantially further, raising questions about Trump Jr.’s cryptocurrency interests, international real-estate activity, reported investments involving defense contracting, prediction-market relationships and relationships with foreign business figures. **His underlying argument was broader than any one industry**: proximity to a president can create access and opportunities unavailable to ordinary Americans, and credible concerns about that proximity deserve congressional scrutiny regardless of party.

Then Curtis wrote the sentence that put **John Curtis** under the microscope:

> “**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 calls for investigation into presidential families](https://www.curtis.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/curtis-calls-for-investigation-into-presidential-families-business-dealings/?utm%5Fsource=chatgpt.com)

Correct. So we won't. But neither will we accept one standard for what John Curtis says today and another for what John Curtis has actually done throughout his political career.

This is not an investigation into whether Donald Trump Jr. should be protected from scrutiny. If there are legitimate questions about gifts, foreign relationships, access or financial benefit created by proximity to a sitting president, ask the fucking questions. Get the records. Take testimony. Determine what happened. This is an examination of something else: **the credibility and consistency of the man demanding it.** Because Curtis isn’t merely asking a question. He’s claiming a principle.  
  
And principles leave fingerprints. 

## **WHERE WAS THIS JOHN CURTIS?**

Hunter Biden gives us the obvious place to start, but not because Hunter Biden and Donald Trump Jr. operated identical businesses. Curtis’s September 22, 2026, letter identifies cryptocurrency, international real estate, defense-contracting investments and prediction-market relationships among the concerns involving Trump Jr. The question Curtis himself has raised is whether **proximity to presidential power can create access, opportunity, influence and private financial value unavailable to ordinary Americans.** 

In the September 2026 letter, Curtis’s says there is “little question” that Joe Biden’s decades in public office gave Hunter Biden access, name recognition and influence that materially enhanced his value in business dealings and opened doors that otherwise might have remained closed. That is important, because THE FF… EXPRESS does not have to speculate about whether Curtis, now sees Hunter Biden as an example of the presidential-proximity problem he is describing.**Curtis is now acknowledging that it did.** But before comparing the John Curtis then, with the John Curtis now, we need to remember what Congress was actually investigating.

Congress had already spent years investigating that territory. Republican-led House committees examined Hunter Biden’s foreign business relationships and broader Biden-family financial dealings. Their investigation covered money from business relationships involving China, Ukraine, Russia, Kazakhstan and Romania; Hunter’s position on the board of Ukrainian energy company Burisma; meetings and telephone interactions between Joe Biden and some of Hunter’s business associates; and whether Hunter Biden’s commercial value was enhanced by the Biden name, Joe Biden’s political position and the perception of access to him. Republicans ultimately alleged that the Biden family had monetized Joe Biden’s public position and influence. Democrats disputed those conclusions and argued that the investigation failed to establish that Joe Biden corruptly altered official policy or took official action in exchange for payments to his family. Those allegations matter here for a very specific reason. They concern almost exactly the principle John Curtis says concerns him now: whether proximity to presidential power can itself become a privately monetazible asset.

The Hunter Biden investigation wasn’t a casual congressional inquiry. Committees obtained bank records, interviewed business associates, issued subpoenas and examined foreign payments and corporate structures. Hunter Biden himself was subpoenaed and eventually sat for hours of sworn testimony. House Republicans ultimately produced a lengthy impeachment-inquiry report alleging that Joe Biden had participated in conduct benefiting his family; those were the committees’ findings and allegations, not criminal findings against Joe Biden, and their interpretation of the evidence remained disputed.

John Curtis was in Congress while all of that was happening, and he supported the investigation. In December 2023, Curtis voted with House Republicans to formally authorize the impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden. Curtis said Hunter Biden's business dealings were “**at best questionable and at worst criminal**” and said the unresolved issue was the extent to which Joe Biden knew about, participated in or was complicit in his son's activities. Curtis said he supported the inquiry so congressional subpoenas could be enforced in court.   
  
**That's John Curtis's record, then.** 
**And THE FF..EXPRESS is going to compare Curtis's previous records with his record today.**

Our review of Curtis’s available congressional record has not located a comparable Curtis-led effort during the Biden years compared to the current effort invested during the Trump years. 

Under the former White House Occupants, the Biden investigation was already moving through Republican-led committees, and Curtis supported it. The record shows that John Curtis did not step forward. He did not personally write to the committee leadership. He did not demanded an investigation centered on presidential-family enrichment. He did not request Hunter Biden’s testimony under his own initiative. He did not demanded that Hunter Biden be subpoenaed. And, under the Biden years, John Curtis did not personally place himself at the front of a national effort to investigate whether a president's family was monetizing proximity to political power. During the Hunter Biden, investigation, Senator John Curtis he **expressed concern** about Hunter Biden's dealings, **supported** an inquiry already being conducted through House committees, and **voted** to strengthen a subpoena authority. 

Now, flip to the current president, the current administration. In September 2026, Curtis is doing something different: **he is initiating.** In September 2026, John Curtis stepped forward. He wrote to the Senate Judiciary leadership. He requested the investigation. He requested subpoenas for Donald Trump Jr (and included Hunter Biden). And, in September 2026, John Curtis, personally made the monetization of presidential proximity his congressional cause, and declared that Congress must pursue credible concerns without regard to party. 

These are **not the same kind of personal interventions.**  When Curtis was asked directly why Hunter Biden needed to be subpoenaed **again**, after years of congressional investigation, **Curtis said that including Hunter was important because he didn't want to single out one person or make his request partisan**. 

That difference cannot be explained away merely by pointing out that Hunter Biden and Donald Trump Jr. had different business portfolios, because Curtis has now supplied the common denominator himself. Crypto isn’t inherently the problem. Real estate isn’t inherently the problem. Prediction markets aren’t inherently the problem. Burisma wasn’t inherently the problem. **The ethical question Curtis has articulated is whether a presidential family relationship itself creates private financial value**—whether a name, access, proximity or perceived influence opens doors that would otherwise remain closed and whether outsiders may expect something in return.

On that question, Hunter Biden isn’t tangential to Curtis’s argument. **Hunter Biden is almost the fucking control group.** Because if we strip away then pretty political words, and read it again thru a normal person lens, what Curtis is saying is that **he did not want to make his request for investigation look personal**. 

There is another difference worth examining because Curtis’s words changed along with his level of intervention. **In 2023**, Curtis separated serious allegations concerning Hunter Biden from evidence establishing Joe Biden’s own involvement. He described Hunter’s dealings as “**at best questionable and at worst criminal**,” and treated Joe Biden’s knowledge, participation or complicity as the question the investigation still needed to answer. Curtis supported continuing the investigation rather than treating the allegation itself as the conclusion. **In September 2026**, Curtis publicly used the word **“corruption”** when reacting to the reported Kremlev-funded wedding celebration involving Donald Trump Jr., before the congressional investigation he subsequently requested had established whether the reported benefit carried an expectation of favorable treatment, a returned favor or anything else improper. His formal September 22 letter was considerably more measured, describing the reports as raising legitimate questions and saying the purpose of an inquiry should be to establish the facts.

**That creates another question about Curtis’s own standard**. Why was his public evidentiary language more restrained when serious allegations involving Hunter Biden raised questions about President Biden’s involvement, than when a reported benefit involving Donald Trump Jr. raised questions about presidential proximity? The answer may be defensible. But Curtis is the one who announced that party should not change the standard, which makes the difference in his own language relevant. 

**The difference itself is worth examining.** Curtis supported congressional scrutiny when Hunter Biden and Joe Biden were under examination. Today, when Curtis sees what he describes as the same underlying ethical problem surrounding Donald Trump Jr.—private financial value potentially created by proximity to a president—Curtis is no longer merely supporting someone else’s inquiry. **He is personally demanding one.**

If Curtis's principle is that presidential families warrant aggressive congressional examination when political proximity may create private financial value, then – **when did Curtis himself first decide that his principle required this level of personal intervention?**

## **CURTIS SAYS THERE'S A PATTERN**

In his September 23 interview, Curtis was presented with a list of Trump-family financial relationships. He said he hadn't necessarily set out to describe a pattern, but once the matters were listed together, it was difficult not to feel that **“there's a pattern there.”** 

Fair enough. Individual events can look very different when placed chronologically beside one another. So let's afford John Curtis the same analytical method.  
Let's list his.  
**DEMOCRAT – REPUBLICAN – DEMOCRAT – REPUBLICAN.**  
  
John Curtis's political history didn't begin with Donald Trump. He was raised Republican. Then he registered as a Democrat. In 2000, Curtis ran for the Utah Senate as a Democrat against Republican Curt Bramble. Curtis subsequently served as chairman of the Utah County Democratic Party from 2002 to 2003\. Curtis's own campaign reportedly confronted the obvious question—why someone whose positions sounded Republican was running as a Democrat. Curtis's response minimized his role by saying there weren't other volunteers and that he wasn't particularly active, and described that period less as an ideological conversion than as an effort to challenge Utah’s one-party political dominance. Then, in 2006, Curtis registered Republican again when he sought an appointment to a vacant Republican seat in the Utah House. 

Those are not accusations. Those are the fucking dates, with actual party line changes and minimal explanations. But Curtis's explanation for them? Curtis says his fundamental beliefs did not undergo the dramatic transformation the party labels might suggest. He has described his Democratic period in terms of political competition rather than ideological conversion. But an explanation and a chronology are not the same thing. The chronology says Curtis changed parties, ran as a Democrat, chaired a Democratic county organization, returned to the Republican Party when seeking a Republican legislative opening, later became mayor in a nonpartisan race and eventually entered Congress as a Republican.

**That is Curtis's explanation.** It does not become the record simply because Curtis said it. The record says that Curtis changed parties, ran as a **Democrat**, chaired a **Democratic** county organization, returned to the **Republican** Party when seeking a Republican legislative opening, later became mayor in a **nonpartisan** race, and eventually entered Congress as a **Republican**. Readers can decide what his explanation is worth. We don't need to decide it for them. 

## **THEN ANOTHER DOOR OPENED**

In 2017, Rep. Jason Chaffetz announced that he was leaving Congress. So, Curtis entered the race for the vacant House seat as a Republican. His old Democratic affiliation followed him. Rather than relying solely upon Utah's Republican convention process, Curtis pursued the signature route to reach the Republican primary, and he did. He went to Congress. This does not establish wrongdoing - BUT - does it establish opportunism? You decide. THE FF...EXPRESS is not going to manufacture a flattering explanation.  
  
Then, there is another event in the chronology. When Mitt Romney announced in September 2023 that he would not seek another Senate term, Curtis initially said he would not run. He said he believed he could better serve Utah by remaining in the House, where he had accumulated seniority and committee influence, and framed the decision as a matter of finishing the work and commitments already in front of him rather than pursuing the next office. Then Curtis reconsidered. By January 2024, the man who had said no to the Senate seat had changed his mind and entered the race.

**That reversal matters**—not because politicians are forbidden from reconsidering decisions, but because it would not be the last time another political office came into view. **Two years later—and only sixteen months into the Senate term that he had changed his mind to pursue—John Curtis was once again at the center of discussions about another major office.**   
In May 2026, E&E News by POLITICO reported that Curtis’s inner circle was actively canvassing Utah donors and allies about a possible 2028 gubernatorial campaign, citing six people involved with or briefed on those discussions. More significantly, the report said Curtis’s allies had asked donors to **hold off on supporting other gubernatorial candidates until Curtis made up his mind.** His chief of staff said Curtis was keeping the door open. 

**THE FF… EXPRESS** finds this relevant because, while those conversations were taking place, **Curtis publicly said he was not planning to leave the Senate, while his chief of staff publicly said Curtis was keeping the door open.**

Curtis’s Senate campaign also placed him directly into another political relationship that matters to the story unfolding today: **his relationship with Donald Trump**. Trump did not endorse Curtis for the Senate seat. He endorsed Trent Staggs, who overwhelmingly defeated Curtis among delegates at the Utah Republican convention. Curtis had also qualified for the statewide primary through Utah’s signature process, however, and Republican voters ultimately chose Curtis.

Curtis’s Senate campaign also placed him directly into another political relationship that matters to the story unfolding today: **his relationship with Donald Trump.** Trump did not endorse Curtis for the Senate seat. He endorsed **Trent Staggs**, who overwhelmingly defeated Curtis among delegates at the Utah Republican convention. Curtis qualified for the statewide primary through Utah’s signature process, however, and Republican voters ultimately chose Curtis.   
  
**Trump backed someone else. Curtis won anyway.** That wasn’t the beginning of the political distance between the two men. Curtis hadn’t voted for Trump in 2016\. Later, Curtis publicly disagreed with significant portions of Trump agenda. Curtis accepted Joe Biden’s 2020 victory, rejected efforts to overturn the Electoral College result and sharply condemned Trump’s role surrounding January 6\. By the time Trump endorsed Staggs instead of Curtis in 2024, there was already a documented political history between them.

THE FF...EXPRESS is not here to prove or disprove whether Curtis's intent is partisan or otherwise. We are not here to unequivocally prove that Curtis’s current demand for an investigation involving Donald Trump Jr. is retaliation, resentment or political score-settling. **Curtis can explain Curtis**. Their history predates this investigation by nearly a decade. John Curtis is now, the Republican senator who has stepped forward and personally demanded congressional subpoenas involving Donald Trump's eldest son. Those facts do not establish motive - but - **they do establish context, and** removing that history from an examination would be dishonest.

## **AMBITION / PRINCIPLE / BOTH?**

There it is. And we’re not answering it, because we don’t need to. John Curtis changed political parties and later changed back. He pursued a Republican legislative opening, and years later, when a congressional seat became available, he pursued that too. When a Senate seat opened, Curtis initially said he would not run, then reconsidered and entered the race. Donald Trump supported his opponent. Curtis won anyway.

Sixteen months after Curtis entered the Senate, people around him were reportedly sounding out donors about another major office. Four months after that reporting, Curtis stepped directly into one of the highest-profile controversies involving Donald Trump’s family and personally demanded congressional action.

Does the May conversations caused the September letter? Maybe. Is Curtis positioning himself for governor, positioning himself against Trump, acting out of revenge or pursuing the controversy for political advantage? Also, maybe. The events happened. The timing exists. The political history exists. We don’t need to manufacture a motive to make those facts worth examining. **So, AMBITION / PRINCIPLE / BOTH?** That’s the question. We don’t have to fucking answer it for him. 

## **“PUBLIC SERVICE SHOULD NOT BE A PATHWAY TO PRIVATE GAIN”**

There is another John Curtis sentence worth putting under the microscope. This month, Curtis joined bipartisan legislation aimed at preventing elected officials and government employees from using material nonpublic government information to profit through prediction markets. His principle was straightforward: **“Public service should not be a pathway to private gain.”**  
  
That legislation addresses a specific problem—government insiders potentially profiting from information unavailable to the public. It does not mean Curtis believes politicians should be prohibited from owning investments, earning money, writing books or becoming wealthier while serving in government. Curtis’s September 22 letter raises a broader issue. It addresses the financial value that can come from **proximity to political power**—access, preferential treatment and private opportunities that may become available because someone is closely connected to a president. Curtis argues that when credible questions arise about those relationships, Congress has an obligation to investigate them regardless of party. 

So we searched Curtis’s record for evidence of how consistently he has personally applied that principle. We found him discussing ethics, supporting investigations, backing the Biden impeachment inquiry and criticizing Hunter Biden’s business dealings. We found him defending congressional stock ownership while acknowledging legitimate concerns about conflicts of interest, and we found him now supporting legislation aimed at preventing government insiders from profiting from nonpublic information.  
  
What we have **not found** in his congressional record, is a comparable effort before this one in which he personally made the monetization of presidential proximity the issue he is making it today. Yes, you read that correctly. He did not take the same, or a comparable stance on presidential proximity with Joe and Hunter Biden. He, again, is changing course to shine a spotlight on President Trump and Don Jr.   
  
So, what does this mean? You can make up your own conclusions, we at THE FF...EXPRESS are simply pointing a laser at the inconsistencies. If John Curtis has an example we missed, he can provide it. **Curtis can defend Curtis.**

## ACCOUNTABILITY WHEN THE PROBLEM IS YOURS

Curtis does have a history of talking about ethics that predates Congress. That history isn't going to disappear simply because some of it helps him. As Provo mayor, Curtis dealt with an ethics investigation involving Councilman Steve Turley. An outside investigator was used. Violations were found. Curtis recommended Turley's removal. When Curtis himself later faced an ethics complaint, an independent investigator cleared him. Those facts belong here because they demonstrate that Curtis's public concern with ethical government did not suddenly materialize in September 2026.

But neither did his mayoral record produce a spotless laboratory demonstration of accountability when Curtis hired John King as Provo's police chief. Concerns about King's behavior toward women reached city leadership before King's eventual departure. Curtis later acknowledged hearing about **three incidents**, after previously recalling two. One led Curtis to warn King about placing himself in compromising circumstances. Another led to King repeating sexual-harassment training and being told to observe appropriate boundaries. A 2015 email describing another interaction as unprofessional copied Curtis. Subsequent allegations became substantially more serious. King was accused of rape; that allegation was investigated outside Provo, and prosecutors declined charges for insufficient evidence. King resigned. Five women later sued, alleging misconduct by King and failures by the city. Provo eventually settled the case without establishing the allegations against Curtis as proven. 

We're not retrying John King. We're not turning disputed allegations into facts. We're looking at John Curtis. Because accountability is easiest when you're pointing across the room. It becomes considerably more informative when the problem lands inside your own administration. And Curtis's record there is complicated enough that nobody gets to replace it with a fucking slogan.

## **THE CURTIS STANDARD**

And after all of that political history, we arrive exactly where we started.   
  
John Curtis says: **one standard**.   
THE FF… EXPRESS says: **Good. Let’s examine that too.** 

Curtis says proximity to political power can create opportunities ordinary Americans don’t receive, and that when those opportunities translate into private financial benefit, preferential treatment or access, Congress has a responsibility to ask questions. He says party shouldn’t matter, oversight shouldn’t begin and end when control of the White House changes, and credible concerns should be pursued wherever they lead.

Fine. Then those aren’t merely standards for Hunter Biden and Donald Trump Jr. **They’re standards for John Curtis**. 

The question isn’t whether Curtis supported scrutiny during the Biden years. He did. The question is how consistently Curtis himself has taken ownership of the principle he is articulating today. When did the possibility that presidential proximity could create private financial value become something John Curtis was willing to personally push through congressional action rather than merely support when other lawmakers were already pursuing it? And if party truly doesn’t matter, what will his own record show about the consistency of that initiative?

Those questions become even more relevant when placed alongside Curtis’s broader political history. When Curtis tells the public that his political decisions are matters of principle, the public is entitled to compare those explanations with a career that has included changes in party affiliation, decisions to pursue offices he had previously declined, and repeated moments when another political opportunity appeared. None of that proves his principles aren’t genuine. But neither does saying something is a matter of principle place it beyond examination.

Those aren't accusations. **They're his fucking standard.**

## **THE SPOTLIGHT**

John Curtis may be sincere. Donald Trump Jr.‘s relationships may have caused him to recognize a problem he believes, that he, and Congress has tolerated for far too long. If that’s what happened, the investigation Curtis requested should establish the facts. If those facts clear Trump Jr., the evidence should be allowed to clear him - and if those facts clear Trump Jr., Curtis should say so just as loudly.

What happens next may tell us considerably more about Curtis’s standard than the letter itself. Curtis will have an opportunity to demonstrate what **“without regard to party”** looks like when applying it becomes politically uncomfortable. And if another Democratic president takes office someday and another presidential family begins deriving substantial financial value from proximity to power, the record will show whether John Curtis reaches for the same fucking microscope.

We don't have to predict him. **We get to watch him**. Because the most consequential thing John Curtis did this week wasn’t criticize Donald Trump Jr., mention Hunter Biden or raise questions about a Russian-financed wedding celebration. **John Curtis announced his standard.** One standard. Regardless of party. Regardless of who occupies the White House. Regardless of whose family benefits. And once a politician announces a standard that loudly, he doesn't get exclusive ownership of it anymore. **The public gets to use it too.**

So we did. We took John Curtis’s standard, his words, his actions and his political history, and we put them on the same fucking table. We didn’t convict him. We didn’t acquit him. And we didn’t explain John Curtis to John Curtis. **He can do that himself.**

But Senator Curtis wanted the spotlight. He asked for the spotlight.  
**He got the fucking spotlight.**

**AMBITION / PRINCIPLE / BOTH?** You tell us, Senator. We're listening.  
**THE FF...EXPRES - READ PAST THE FUCKING HEADLINE.**