Another Member of Trump’s Inner Circle Works for Russian-Linked Group

Susie Wiles’s daughter also works for Republika Srpska.

Yet another person with close ties to Donald Trump’s White House has been linked to a pro-Russia Balkan regime.

Katie Wiles, daughter of Trump’s chief of staff, Susie Wiles, works for a political lobbying firm that has a $35,000-per-month contract to represent a small self-governing territory in Bosnia and Herzegovina known as Republika Srpska. She traveled there as recently as August.

A photograph circulated by Evi Kokalari, a conservative Albanian American activist, showed the younger Wiles wielding a rifle and standing next to a man that CBS News identified as Željko Budimir, the interior minister of Republika Srpska. The image appeared to have been initially posted to Wiles’s Instagram story with the caption “mostly work some serious fun!”

Continental Strategy, Wiles’s employer, confirmed to CBS that she traveled to Republika Srpska in August, but said she has not lobbied the U.S. government on its behalf. Yeah, she probably wouldn’t have to do much—her mom would do it for her. As of Thursday afternoon, Wiles’s page on her company’s website was inaccessible.

This news comes as MAGA world has turned its ire on two of the president’s closest advisers, Chris LaCivita and James Blair, who took time out of their presumably busy pre-midterm elections schedules to travel to the Balkans to assist in that territory’s elections. The two men were paid hundreds of thousands of dollars each to provide counsel on voting issues to the government, which is led by far-right nationalists. Republika Srpska is closely aligned with Russian President Vladimir Putin and has made a considerable effort to make inroads with Trump and his allies.

Both LaCivita and Blair are connected to Susie Wiles—but even the famed “ice maiden” reportedly couldn’t protect them from the White House’s ire. Trump tried to distance himself from his beloved strategists, claiming that Blair and LaCivita were “outside consultants,” but his chief of staff’s child may be harder to disown.

Trump Awards Medals to Six of His Biggest Donors of All Time

Donald Trump’s grifting presidency continues.

On Thursday afternoon, President Trump awarded national medals for advancements in technology and science to six CEOs and founders: Google’s Sergey Brin, NVIDIA’s Jensen Huang, Advanced Micro Devices’ Lisa Su, Dell Technologies’ Michael Dell, Microsoft’s Satya Nadella, and SpaceX and Tesla’s Elon Musk. These six awardees collectively donated at least $6 billion to Trump’s campaign, his inauguration fund, his White House ballroom, pro-Trump super PACs, and other Republican initiatives aligned with Trump’s agenda, a New Republic analysis found.

Congratulations to all six individuals for realizing that the president can be very easily bought. 

Sergey Brin, Google co-founder, current Gemini AI head

Google’s parent company, Alphabet (which Brin co-founded), donated $22 billion to the Trust for the National Mall, a fund that will help construct Trump’s White House ballroom plan. The donation was made as part of a settlement in Trump’s January 6–related lawsuit against YouTube. Google separately  donated $1 million to Trump’s inauguration fund. Brin himself donated half a million dollars to the Republican National Committee last year, and spent more than $100 million in an effort to kill California’s proposed wealth tax. 

These donations don’t include other clear links between Google and Trump, like the tech company’s decision to hire........

© New Republic