President Donald Trump said Friday that he is no longer looking into the outside consulting work conducted by a pair of his top political advisers after they donated to his presidential library.
Following reports of Chris LaCivita and James Blair’s consulting work for a pro-Russian nationalist government in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Trump vowed to investigate their work for foreign entities — going so far as to suggest that he might “terminate them” if any conflicts of interest were discovered.
But that was apparently settled shortly after the pair donated their full consulting fee from Republika Srpska, one of the two governing entities of Bosnia-Herzegovina, to Trump’s future presidential library. It’s unclear how much the donation was.
“They took the money and they gave it to essentially a charity,” Trump said. “I think it was a very nice thing to do.”
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The donation was first reported Thursday evening by the New York Post.
LaCivita and Blair’s side hustle first garnered headlines after The New York Times reported that the two had traveled to Republika Srpska to advise its government on voting-related issues ahead of the country’s election earlier this month.
LaCivita co-led Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign and Blair served as a deputy chief of staff at the White House until his departure in May.
Republika Srpska is an autonomous entity that makes up half of Bosnia and Herzegovina, with a political leadership that includes pro-Russian Serb nationalists that have aligned themselves with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Its leaders have also spent heavily in recent years trying to court Trump and his supporters.
Trump rebuked both LaCivita and Blair publicly after learning about their foreign consulting work, writing on Truth Social: “If there’s a conflict, I will terminate them, immediately!”
Compounding matters, White House chief of staff Susie Wiles and her daughter, Katie Wiles, also met with senior figures of the region’s leadership in recent weeks.
CBS News reported that Katie Wiles traveled to Republika Srpska. A verified photo shows her holding a rifle next to the region’s interior minister, Željko Budimir.
A White House official told CBS News that “Susie does not discuss work matters with her daughters.”
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