--- title: "The Chief of Staff’s Daughter, a Rifle, and the Strongman of Republika Srpska" description: "A verified photo of Katie Wiles in Bosnia deepens the questions about Trumpworld’s paid courtship of Milorad Dodik" author: "Jan Sokol" published: 2026-10-08T15:30:00Z modified: 2026-10-08T20:46:17Z url: https://rews.cc/a/the-chief-of-staff-s-daughter-a-rifle-and-the-strongman-of-r-b3f72d language: en tags: ["trump", "balkans", "russia", "lobbying", "politics", "world", "us"] publisher: "Rews (https://rews.cc)" --- # The Chief of Staff’s Daughter, a Rifle, and the Strongman of Republika Srpska *A verified photo of Katie Wiles in Bosnia deepens the questions about Trumpworld’s paid courtship of Milorad Dodik* By Jan Sokol · October 8, 2026 · https://rews.cc/a/the-chief-of-staff-s-daughter-a-rifle-and-the-strongman-of-r-b3f72d ## In brief - CBS News verified a photo of Katie Wiles, daughter of chief of staff Susie Wiles, holding a rifle beside Republika Srpska’s interior minister in Bosnia - Her firm, Continental Strategy, lobbies for Republika Srpska and says her mid-August trip was for a U.S. client’s feasibility study - Trump advisers James Blair and Chris LaCivita were paid hundreds of thousands of dollars each to advise Dodik’s party before the Oct. 4 election - U.S. sanctions on Dodik were lifted last October; a $1.5B pipeline deal later went to a firm tied to Trump allies Binnall and Flynn - Dodik, convicted and banned from office, campaigned anyway; his SNSD party won over 55% in the regional vote In the photograph she is holding a rifle at a shooting range in northern Bosnia, beside a man identified as the interior minister of Republika Srpska, and the caption reads like a postcard from a war that ended thirty years ago: “mostly work + some serious fun!” The woman is Katie Wiles, daughter of the White House chief of staff, Susie Wiles, and a partner at Continental Strategy, a large Washington lobbying firm. The image — circulated by conservative Albanian American activist Evi Kokalari, who said it was taken in August, apparently a screenshot from Wiles’ personal Instagram — [was verified by CBS News](https://cbsnews.com/news/russia-trump-susie-wiles-milorad-dodik-bosnia-serbia/), which confirmed through satellite imagery, earlier posts from the same range and the position of the summer sun that it was taken at the RIS shooting range in Republika Srpska, a place Bosnian media say interior minister Željko Budimir frequents. Continental Strategy acknowledged Wiles took the trip in mid-August, for two days, “with a U.S.-based company who was invited to do a feasibility study in the region.” “Wiles provides strategic communications support to this US company and has done so for over two years,” a spokesperson said, insisting she “has not spoken with any United States Government official regarding Srpska.” The firm declined to name the company. U.S. foreign agent filings reviewed by CBS show Continental Strategy registered to lobby for Republika Srpska in early 2026, and that Alejandro Garcia — a former deputy political director of Trump’s campaign, also a partner at the firm — is listed as a consultant for the territory. The firm said Garcia alone attended Bosnia’s Oct. 4 election and was the “sole person” dealing with the U.S. government on Srpska, his contacts “meticulously tracked” under FARA. It was Garcia, a White House official said, who arranged Susie Wiles’ meeting last month with Željka Cvijanović, a close Dodik ally. “Susie does not discuss work matters with her daughters,” the official told CBS. Katie Wiles has no involvement with Trump’s political operation. ## The grifters and the strongman The photograph surfaced days after the New York Times reported that James Blair — who runs Trump’s main fundraising vehicle, MAGA Inc, and previously served as deputy chief of staff — and Chris LaCivita, a senior Trump adviser, spent part of last week in Republika Srpska advising Dodik’s party ahead of the Oct. 4 elections. Each, [Al Jazeera noted](https://aljazeera.com/features/2026/10/8/what-were-trump-operatives-doing-for-pro-russian-politician-dodik-in-bosnia) of the Times’ sourcing, was paid hundreds of thousands of dollars, hired through a Washington law firm retained by the Republika Srpska government. Justice Department filings show the entity has paid more than $4 million since the start of 2025 to lobbyists and operatives linked to Trump. Trump first said he had no idea whom the two men worked for and pledged to terminate them “immediately” if a conflict emerged; hours later, in the Oval Office, he softened: “They don’t have a conflict, because they’re independent people... they are consultants and I assume they have a lot of clients.” Steve Bannon, his former chief strategist, called Blair and LaCivita “grifters” and demanded an accounting of the money, Politico reported. The timing stung Republicans: their operatives were in the Balkans as the party’s midterm campaign limped, polls sour amid the unpopular war on Iran. ## A breath of fresh air, thirty years on Milorad Dodik has led Republika Srpska since 1998, with brief interruptions — the Serb entity carved from the Dayton Peace Agreement, signed at an Ohio air base in 1995 after four years of war and the genocide of Bosniak Muslims. Irony has a long memory here: Washington itself once lifted Dodik up as the alternative to Serbian nationalists, and Madeleine Albright called him a “breath of fresh air” in the Balkans. He turned toward Moscow instead, meeting Vladimir Putin in the Kremlin as recently as September 29, five days before the vote. During the 2024 U.S. campaign he was photographed in a MAGA hat. A Sarajevo court sentenced him in February to a year in prison for defying Christian Schmidt, the international envoy guarding the peace accords; he was banned from office for six years and stripped of the presidency, a ban Bosnia’s highest court upheld last November. He campaigned anyway. His SNSD party took more than 55 percent in the regional vote. On election night, declaring victory, Dodik spoke of the significance of Trump’s return to power. The Trump administration lifted years-old U.S. sanctions on Dodik last October — officially a pragmatic step to ease tensions; in return Dodik dropped several unconstitutional laws. On September 25, Bosnia’s Constitutional Court ruled the entity’s lobbying itself unconstitutional. Ivana Korajlic of Transparency International predicted it would continue regardless: “it will only be presented in a different way.” ## The pipeline and the proximity The money trail runs past the lobbying. House Democrats reported last month that within six months of the sanctions’ lifting, Dodik’s party dropped its opposition to a gas pipeline between Bosnia and Croatia worth more than $1.5 billion, and parliament named AAFS Infrastructure & Energy — a U.S. company headed by Trump’s former personal attorney Jesse Binnall and Joseph Flynn, brother of Gen. Michael Flynn — as lead developer. FARA filings show Michael Flynn himself lobbied for Republika Srpska in October 2025, the very month the sanctions fell. An administration official told CBS the move prevented Balkan instability — “President Trump’s pragmatic, farseeing foreign policy,” the official said, without elaborating on the disasters averted. What does Dodik actually buy? Aleksandar Trifunovic, editor of Buka magazine in Banja Luka, sees no American fingerprint on the campaign: “Dodik’s rhetoric has not changed. It has been similar to MAGA rhetoric for a long time. But it was important for Dodik to be able to say that he had Trump’s people working for him... what Dodik paid for and what he got was proximity to Trump.” The deeper contradiction, Trifunovic said, belongs to Washington: “You cannot be with both Trump and Putin at the same time. That certainly does not have a great future.” The capitals of small breakaway provinces have always understood the transaction better than the empires making it. The ruler buys the aura; the aura invoices him. ## Sources - [Photo shows top Trump aide's daughter with pro-Russia politician in Bosnia](https://cbsnews.com/news/russia-trump-susie-wiles-milorad-dodik-bosnia-serbia/) — cbsnews.com - [What were Trump operatives doing for pro-Russian politician Dodik in Bosnia?](https://aljazeera.com/features/2026/10/8/what-were-trump-operatives-doing-for-pro-russian-politician-dodik-in-bosnia) — aljazeera.com