The US President Donald Trump said he could fire two of his political advisers — James Blair and Chris Lasivita — if their outside work creates a conflict of interest. The New York Times reported the day before that they traveled to Republika Srpska for paid work for its government.
This is reported by CNN, citing sources.
According to the NYT, Blair and Lasivita visited Republika Srpska, a territory within Bosnia and Herzegovina, last week ahead of local elections. They worked for the government of this entity, which the publication calls pro-Russian.
According to the NYT, Blair and Lasivita each received several hundred thousand dollars through a Washington law firm hired by the Republika Srpska government to advise on election matters. They said the work was for the government, not the nationalist party that controls it.
CNN, citing sources familiar with the situation, writes that Trump was unaware of the advisersʼ trip to the Balkans and that the Republika Srpska government was one of their clients. The president learned about this before the NYT material was published.
According to one of CNNʼs interlocutors, Trump was irritated by this story, in particular because the advisers went abroad on the eve of the US midterm elections and earned money from work related to his political activities.
At the same time, another CNN source said that Trump simply wanted to hear different opinions on the published story. According to two people familiar with the matter, the president then decided to publicly respond to the material.
“I have no idea who else they work for, but with that in mind, I will ask them, and if there is a conflict, I will fire them immediately!” Trump wrote on Truth Social on Wednesday.
- James Blair heads the super-political committee MAGA Inc. and is in charge of Trumpʼs midterm strategy. Chris Lasivita is a senior advisor to MAGA Inc. Both worked on Trumpʼs 2024 presidential campaign.
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