Utah Republican Sen. John Curtis has reaffirmed his call for Congress to scrutinize President Donald Trump's son, as Democrats prepare a "Trump Crime Family" probe.

"My position hasn't changed," Curtis said in a statement to The Salt Lake Tribune. "Congress has a responsibility to examine whether presidential family members are using their access for personal financial gain, regardless of party."

The incoming Democratic chair of the powerful House Oversight Committee has outlined four investigative priorities: corporate corruption, abuse allegations involving DHS and ICE, the Epstein files cover-up, and the Trump family's business dealings. That final priority dovetails with the scrutiny Curtis has been seeking, giving his long-stalled appeal a concrete committee venue when the new Congress convenes in January.

Curtis first called for an inquiry into the president's son in late September, urging fellow members of Congress to examine whether Donald Trump Jr. had made any financial profit from being close to the presidency. At the time, his appeal went unheeded. With Democrats now promising to get to the bottom of the Trump family's business, however, his efforts may have some legs.

Curtis has also said he supports pressing on with probes of Hunter Biden, the son of former President Joe Biden. Congress previously examined the younger Biden to determine whether he had leveraged his father's office for his own ends. Lawmakers "nearly wore out the subpoena machine investigating Hunter Biden's foreign relationships," Curtis remarked in September, adding that "they shouldn't unplug it now."

Trump Jr., Curtis said, has not been subjected to that kind of scrutiny — a gap he partly blamed for the Republicans' heavy midterm losses.

"Any investigation should follow the facts and focus on restoring public trust," he said Friday. "That's one of the many reasons Americans voted the way they did on Tuesday."

Curtis's September call followed a ProPublica report showing that Umar Kremlev, a Kremlin-linked Russian oligarch, quietly put up hundreds of thousands of dollars for Trump Jr.'s wedding celebrations, even renting a private island in the Bahamas for multiple nights. About 50 people were on the guest list, including Jared Kushner and other Trump family members. Kremlev, who met Trump Jr. a couple of years ago, according to his press office, attended the event alongside a good number of other Russians.

It is not the first time Trump Jr.'s Russian connections have been put under a microscope. In the wake of the 2016 election, he was at the heart of the Robert Mueller probe — the special counsel investigation into Russian election interference and any links to the Trump campaign — after it emerged that he had attended a Trump Tower meeting with a Russian lawyer billed as offering damaging information on Hillary Clinton.

The Oversight Committee's broad authority could prove decisive. Claire Leavitt, a professor at Smith College who specializes in government oversight, told The Salt Lake Tribune in an interview Friday that the panel has wide latitude. "They can really investigate anything they want," she said. While most committees are confined by their jurisdiction despite holding subpoena power, "what makes House Oversight and Reform different is that they have a jurisdiction that's completely wide open," she said. That means Democratic lawmakers can make an issue of just about anything, whether in the public or private sphere. From here, the markers to watch are whether the incoming chair formally opens a Trump family business probe once the committee is seated, whether document-and-testimony subpoenas follow, and whether other Republicans echo Curtis's call.