On October 29, 2025, the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control removed Milorad Dodik, the Bosnian Serb separatist leader of Republika Srpska, from its sanctions list, along with his TV channel ATV. The sanctions, which included asset freezes and visa bans, had been imposed by the Obama administration in 2017. Dodik thanked Trump for “correcting a grave injustice,” AP reported. An administration official told CBS News the sanctions were lifted to prevent instability in the Balkans.
CBS News reported that Michael Flynn last worked as a paid lobbyist for Republika Srpska in October 2025, the month the sanctions were lifted, and that filings show he was paid $100,000 through RRB Strategies, a firm run by Rod Blagojevich, whom Trump pardoned. AAFS Infrastructure & Energy, headed by Trump's former personal attorney Jesse Binnall and Michael Flynn's brother Joseph, was granted lead-investor status on a Bosnian gas pipeline in April, and Energy Secretary Chris Wright attended the contract signing. A House Democratic report titled “Pay for Play in the Balkans” alleges the sanctions removal and the pipeline are directly linked. That is a partisan allegation, not an established finding.
In October 2026, the New York Times reported that Chris LaCivita and James Blair, two leaders of Trump's midterm political operation, traveled to Republika Srpska to advise its government ahead of elections there and were each paid hundreds of thousands of dollars, according to Politico and the Guardian, which relayed the Times report. Semafor reported, citing three people familiar with the trip, that Continental, a lobbying firm with a $35,000-a-month Republika Srpska contract, helped arrange it, and that the 48-hour visit focused on voting equipment.
Trump responded on Truth Social that the two “are outside consultants” and “do not work for me other than as outside consultants,” adding, “I do not have any idea who else they work for but will, on reflection, ask them and, if there's a conflict, I will terminate them, immediately!”
CBS News also verified a photo of Katie Wiles, daughter of White House chief of staff Susie Wiles and a partner at Continental, in Republika Srpska in mid-August. The firm said that trip was for a separate client. A White House official told CBS, “Susie does not discuss work matters with her daughters,” and said a recent meeting between Susie Wiles and Dodik ally Željka Cvijanović was arranged by Continental partner Alex Garcia, not by Katie Wiles.