House Democrat presses Trump Jr.’s venture firm on Pentagon-linked deals

House Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Jamie Raskin, D-Md., sent a letter to 1789 Capital Management on August 26 demanding records on how three of its portfolio companies won billions of dollars in federal contracts and regulatory reversals in less than two years, according to Common Dreams. The letter names Donald Trump Jr., a partner at the firm, along with company president Omeed Malik and chief investment officer Christopher Buskirk, and sets a September 9 deadline for a response.

Raskin’s letter states that 1789 Capital’s assets under management grew from roughly $150 million to about $3 billion in the two years since Trump Jr. joined as a partner after the 2024 election. “A trio of businessmen with heretofore lackluster records in the market was suddenly running the hottest firm,” Raskin wrote, according to the letter.

The letter cites four portfolio companies by name. Vulcan Elements, a rare earth magnet startup, received a roughly $65 million investment round that included 1789 Capital in August 2025; three months later the company was awarded a $620 million loan from the Pentagon’s Office of Strategic Capital, and it later secured a separate $50 million deal in which the federal government took a partial equity stake. Vulcan Elements secured nine government contracts within eight months of the 1789 Capital investment, the letter states.

Anduril Industries, another portfolio company, received a $22 billion contract that had previously belonged to Microsoft and a second, $20 billion Army contract in March, both arriving within weeks of Trump’s inauguration. Juul Labs, in which 1789 Capital holds a $5 million stake, saw the Food and Drug Administration reverse earlier enforcement efforts and approve five of its product types. Polymarket, also in the portfolio, had a Justice Department investigation closed and won regulatory approval to enter the U.S. market from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. Across the four companies, federal contracts and awards totaled roughly $735 million in 2025 alone.

The letter follows an earlier, unsuccessful attempt by House Democrats to compel testimony over the same Vulcan Elements deal. At a Natural Resources Committee subcommittee hearing on March 25, Rep. Maxine Dexter, D-Ore., forced a vote to subpoena Trump Jr. to testify about his financial stake in Vulcan Elements and the timing of the Pentagon loan, according to Newsweek. Subcommittee Chairman Paul Gosar, R-Ariz., called a recess before Republicans, including Rep. Lauren Boebert, R-Colo., voted 5-2 to table the motion and adjourned the hearing. “This is the oligarchy on full display,” Dexter said at the hearing, asking why Trump Jr. would not explain the timing of the investment if there was nothing to hide.

An attorney representing 1789 Capital, identified in Raskin’s letter as AJ Merton, dismissed the House Judiciary inquiry as “unsubstantiated talking points” and called it “politically motivated harassment.”

The scrutiny extends beyond the four companies named in Raskin’s letter. Trump Jr. also holds a roughly $4 million stake in Unusual Machines, a drone parts maker that separately won a U.S. Army contract for 3,500 drone motors, according to the Newsweek report on the March hearing. 1789 Capital was founded in 2023, and Trump Jr. joined as a partner in 2024; the Financial Times reported that December on the firm’s equity purchases ahead of the federal decisions Raskin’s letter now questions.

1789 Capital and its named principals have until September 9 to respond to Raskin’s letter.