White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles and her daughter have met with senior figures from Bosnia's pro-Russian Serb nationalist leadership in recent weeks, as evidenced by photos circulating online. The meetings come after President Donald Trump distanced himself from two political advisers due to their travels to the region to advise on election-related issues. Wiles met with Željka Cvijanović, a close ally of Bosnian Serb leader Milorad Dodik, at the White House on September 21. Cvijanović shared a photo of the meeting on Instagram, stating they discussed 'the situation in BiH and the region' and looked forward to continued cooperation.
Cvijanović recently won another term as the Serb member of Bosnia's three-member presidency and is a senior member of the SNSD, the Serb nationalist party that has close ties with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Katie Wiles, Susie's daughter, traveled to Republika Srpska in August and was photographed holding a rifle alongside the region's interior minister, Željko Budimir, as reported by CBS News. Katie Wiles is a partner at Continental Strategy, a Washington lobbying firm that registered earlier this year to represent the Republika Srpska government. The firm stated that her two-day trip was for a separate U.S. client conducting a feasibility study and that she has not spoken with U.S. government officials about Republika Srpska.
A White House official clarified that Susie Wiles does not discuss work matters with her daughters. The meeting between Susie Wiles and Cvijanović was arranged by Alex Garcia, another partner at Continental Strategy who is registered to work for Republika Srpska. Cvijanović indicated that she and Wiles planned to continue discussions within a month to six weeks after their September meeting, expecting these talks to lead to 'concrete activities,' according to Republika Srpska's government-linked news agency SRNA.
Trump distanced himself from advisers Chris LaCivita and James Blair, stating he would 'terminate them' if their outside work posed a conflict, following a report by The New York Times about their travel to Republika Srpska to advise on voting-related issues ahead of the October 4 election. Republika Srpska has invested significantly in Washington lobbyists as its leaders seek closer ties with the Trump administration. Last year, the administration lifted sanctions on Dodik and several of his allies that had been imposed for undermining Bosnia's U.S.-brokered postwar political order.