Two Trump Insiders Face Scrutiny Over Work for Bosnia's Pro-Russia Dodik

A New York Times report is raising questions about why two key political associates of U.S. President Donald Trump visited pro-Russia politician Milorad Dodik in Bosnia and Herzegovina, just ahead of Sunday's parliamentary election.

According to sources cited by the U.S. newspaper, James Blair and Chris LaCivita advised Dodik and were paid hundreds of thousands of dollars for the work.

The revelation has sparked a wave of criticism from within the Republican Party itself. Blair currently runs Trump's main fundraising body, MAGA Inc, while LaCivita is a senior adviser to the president. Neither has commented publicly on the trip.

Who is Milorad Dodik?

Dodik is a Bosnian Serb politician known for his pro-Russia stance. He last met Russian President Vladimir Putin on Sept. 29 in Moscow in a meeting described as friendly, just five days before the general election in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Last November, the Supreme Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina upheld a ban barring Dodik from formally running in the Oct. 4 election, after a court in Sarajevo ruled that he had failed to comply with decisions by the international high representative overseeing the country's peace agreement.

The former president of Republika Srpska — the autonomous Serb entity within Bosnia — was sentenced to a year in prison in February for defying Christian Schmidt, the German diplomat responsible for protecting the 1995 Dayton peace accords. He was also barred from holding political office for six years and stripped of his presidency.

Dodik campaigned anyway. His nationalist, pro-Russia SNSD party later claimed a landslide win at multiple levels, with more than 55 percent of the vote in regional elections, cementing its grip on power in the majority-Serb Republika Srpska.

Dodik has led Republika Srpska since 1998, with several interruptions. He has advocated secession of the entity created in 1995 under the Dayton Agreement and its eventual merger with neighboring Serbia — a stance that has raised fears of renewed conflict at home and in the region.

Peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina was reached in 1995 after four years of bloody conflict and genocide against Bosniak Muslims, brokered under pressure from U.S. President Bill Clinton's administration at a U.S. military base in Dayton, Ohio.

Ironically, Dodik first came to power with U.S. backing, as an alternative to the Serb nationalists who then dominated the political scene. Then-U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright famously called him a "breath of fresh air" in the Balkans.

But Dodik quickly turned away from U.S. interests and moved closer to Russia. After Donald Trump returned to power in 2025, he again sought to build closer ties with Washington. During the 2024 U.S. campaign, he appeared wearing a MAGA hat.

He appears to have achieved at least part of his goal. Although the U.S. had sanctioned him for years over his destabilizing role in Bosnia and Herzegovina, those sanctions were lifted this year. The Trump administration called the move pragmatic and aimed at reducing tensions in the country. In return, Dodik repealed several unconstitutional laws.

Why are Trump's key advisers working for Dodik?

According to the New York Times, James Blair and Chris LaCivita were hired through a Washington law firm commissioned by the Republika Srpska government. Each received hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Documents filed with the U.S. Department of Justice show that Republika Srpska has spent more than $4 million since the start of 2025 to pay lobbyists and political operatives with ties to Trump.

The use of public funds by Republika Srpska to pay lobbying firms has also been challenged before the Constitutional Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina. On Sept. 25, the court ruled that Republika Srpska's lobbying activities were incompatible with the constitution of Bosnia and Herzegovina, because their aims ran counter to the constitution, the decisions of the Constitutional Court or the institutions of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Ivana Korajlic of Transparency International told Al Jazeera that Republika Srpska would most likely not stop lobbying, but "just present it differently."

LaCivita previously worked as a campaign strategist for Sali Berisha, one of Albania's most influential post-communist politicians, ahead of last year's Albanian election. Berisha is a former president (1992-1997) and prime minister (2005-2013) of Albania and now leads the opposition center-right Democratic Party.

The administration of former U.S. President Joe Biden barred Berisha from entering the U.S. in 2021, citing corruption and misuse of public funds. Berisha denies the allegations. In June this year, under Trump's second term, reports emerged that the U.S. had lifted the travel ban on him and his family members, just as it had done with Dodik.

How has the Republican Party reacted?

The news of the trip sparked a backlash within the Republican Party, especially given the timing. Blair and LaCivita were in Republika Srpska just as Trump's political machine was focused on the final stretch of the U.S. midterm campaign. Polls show Republicans are faring poorly with voters amid a war with Iran that is deeply unpopular with the American public.

Steve Bannon, Trump's former chief strategist, called Blair and LaCivita profiteers and demanded a detailed review of the money they received, according to Politico.

What has Donald Trump said?

Trump initially said he was unaware of Blair's and LaCivita's other activities and would ask them who else they work for. He added that if he found a conflict of interest, he would fire them immediately.

Later, answering reporters' questions in the Oval Office, Trump softened his tone. He said Blair and LaCivita did not actually have a conflict of interest because they are not currently White House employees, and as consultants they are allowed to have multiple clients.

Why did Dodik hire Trump's political associates?

It remains unclear what Dodik gained from hiring people close to Trump. Aleksandar Trifunovic, editor-in-chief of the Buka magazine in Banja Luka, said he saw no concrete results from their advising Dodik.

"We haven't seen anything that would allow us to say: 'This is what they taught him, and that's why he won the election.' Dodik's rhetoric hasn't changed. It has resembled MAGA rhetoric for a long time. But what matters to Dodik is being able to say he has Trump's people working for him. So what Dodik paid for and got was proximity to Trump through Trump's people," Trifunovic told Al Jazeera.

Trifunovic attributed Trump's political associates working for Dodik to the pragmatism of the U.S. political system, where the lobbying system is relatively transparent. "The more money you give, the more support you get," he said.

Still, Trifunovic particularly stressed the relationship between Trump's political circle and Dodik, especially given Dodik's ties to Russia and President Vladimir Putin.

"The real criticism is something else: how can it happen that Trump's people are close to someone with such close ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin? You can't stand with Trump and with Putin at the same time. That certainly has no good future," Trifunovic said.

How does this affect Trump-Dodik relations?

Dodik's relationship with Trump's political circle has a broader context. Miljan Kovac, an editor and political commentator in Nevesinje, southeastern Bosnia and Herzegovina, said Trump and the Republican Party have given Dodik political space after years of U.S. sanctions.

The lifting of sanctions on Dodik last October was justified by the U.S. administration as a pragmatic move to reduce tensions in Bosnia and Herzegovina. "Dodik clearly struck a bargain with the U.S. administration in his own way," Kovac told Al Jazeera.

On election night, after claiming victory for the SNSD, Dodik himself spoke about the significance of Trump's return to U.S. politics.

"Without Trump's great victory, we might be political corpses today. But thanks to the new environment, we are now the political winners," Dodik said.