Trump Team Freaks Out Over Advisers Helping Russian-Linked Group
MAGAworld has turned its fire and fury toward two of the president's closest advisers, Chris LaCivita and James Blair, after it was revealed that the pair were more interested in assisting a pro-Russia Balkan...
MAGAworld has turned its fire and fury toward two of the president's closest advisers, Chris LaCivita and James Blair, after it was revealed that the pair were more interested in assisting a pro-Russia Balkan regime than helping Republicans win the midterms. "This has opened the floodgates," a person close to the White House told Politico Thursday.
"The knives are now fully out for these two." Donald Trump tapped both men to oversee his midterm advertising campaign. But LaCivita and Blair were not stateside last week amidst the Republican blitz, instead visiting a small self-governing territory in Bosnia and Herzegovina known as Republika Srpska ahead of its regional elections, according to several sources that spoke with The New York Times Tuesday.
Republika Srpska is closely aligned with Russian President Vladimir Putin and, according to the Times , has made a considerable effort to make inroads with Trump and his allies. Blair and LaCivita were paid well for their time and, presumably, their connection to the president, receiving hundreds of thousands of dollars through a Washington-based law firm affiliated with Republika Srpska's government.
Continue reading
Watch a short ad to unlock the full article
The rest stays locked if you skip or close the ad early.
Trump, for his part, was apparently unaware of the duo's travel plans. In a post on Truth Social Wednesday, Trump immediately tried to distance himself from his beloved strategists, claiming that Blair and LaCivita were "outside consultants" and "do not work for me." Yet the sudden disownment is a convenient revision of Blair and LaCivita's broad influence on the MAGA movement.
Both have held significant positions within Trump's orbit: prior to running the president's midterm spending campaign, Blair served as Trump's White House deputy chief of staff. LaCivita worked as the chief strategist of Trump's primary super PAC, MAGA Inc., and later became chief operating officer of the Republican National Committee.
Both are also connected to Chief of Staff Susie Wiles—but even the famed "ice maiden" reportedly couldn't protect Blair and LaCivita from the White House's ire. "[Trump] has been livid for awhile over how things have been heading, and he hates nothing more than when people make money off him, especially when those people abandon him like this," another person close to the president told Politico, noting that Trump could "could cut them off forever" if the situation continues to go south.
But outside of the White House, political strategists have viewed LaCivita and Blair's disembarkment as a sign of Trump's troubled waters. Former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie explained to Politico that "if your top political advisers are not paying attention to the midterms and instead are paying attention to taking money off the table in a foreign country, that seems to indicate to me that they've moved on from Donald Trump as their top priority, and I think you're going to see a lot of that." Others were simply stunned by Blair and LaCivita's foreign affairs.
James Carville, who worked on former President Bill Clinton's presidential campaign, told Politico that the entire scandal was "jaw dropping." "Everything I did, I cleared with the White House," Carville said. "When I saw this I did one of those sitcom spit takes."
Article text via FreeNewsAPI. Rights remain with Yahoo.
Read on publisher site → Opens Yahoo in a new tab
