James Blair and Chris LaCivita, who are leading the president’s congressional campaign operation, traveled to Republika Srpska to provide election advice.
Page A2From§Eachthe sunrise edition — 7 October 2026
Bosnian Serb separatist leader gets sanctions relief, then gets the president's top midterm strategists as election consultants
As it ran on the front
You are meant to be appalled at the accusation, and the accusation is the least interesting thing in front of you. Pay-to-play is what Democratic lawmakers call the lifting of sanctions off a Bosnian Serb separatist leader, done, they say, to enrich the president's allies around a Balkan gas project. Grubby. Quite grubby. Also lawful.
Do note what a sanction is. Not a statute and not a verdict — a listing, maintained at the pleasure of the executive, and relief from a listing is that same administrative act performed backwards. Nothing was broken to grant it. A waiver does exactly what a waiver is drafted to do. The novelty is the beneficiary.…
…(cont) Then the second half of it. James Blair and Chris LaCivita run the president's congressional campaign operation. To a Russia-aligned government. What that service cost, and who met the cost, is not stated ... and hours before November are the one commodity those two cannot make more of.
Sanctions relief was granted. The advisers went. Your midterm is in November.
At dusk the gate opens. A man holds the latch for the fox.
“They sold us sanctions as national security, and it turns out a sanctions list is a stock room — you pull a name off the shelf when a gas project needs a friend. The two guys who are supposed to be running the president's congressional campaign in October found the time to fly to Republika Srpska and coach a Russia-aligned government through its elections. Democrats call it pay-to-play; whatever you call it, the enriching is happening on one end and it is not your end.”
“Sanctions relief is a routine diplomatic instrument, every administration uses it, and frankly I don't see the — did I say routine? That doesn't sound like me. Blair and LaCivita are private consultants on their own time, nobody has alleged a crime, and the real story is Democrats politicizing a pipeline because they're down in the midterms.”
The receipts
Democratic lawmakers accuse the Trump administration of lifting sanctions against a Bosnian Serb separatist leader in a bid to help enrich the president's allies.
This page is a back-issue: the story as it ran, receipts as they were. The current edition is at the front. The byline is a pen name for a column drafted by a machine and checked by the editor: how this is made.