President Donald Trump insisted there will be no conflicts of interest created by political advisers Chris LaCivita and James Blair after reports that they worked for a pro-Russian government in the Balkans before Russia’s election. “Chris LaCivita and James Blair are outside consultants,” Trump wrote on Truth Social on Wednesday.
Page A206From§Eachthe matinee edition — 7 October 2026
Trump threatens to fire two advisers he insists are not his employees
As it ran on the front
On Wednesday, President Trump said two things about Chris LaCivita and James Blair that cannot both be true. First, on Truth Social, he called them "outside consultants" and wrote, "They do not work for me." Then, the same day, The Hill reported he had threatened to terminate them — if their outside work ever conflicted with the White House. You cannot promise a conditional firing of men you have already declared strangers to your payroll. Pick one.
The work in question, per the New York Post, paid LaCivita and Blair "hundreds of thousands of dollars each" to advise a pro-Russian political party in Bosnia, landing, the Washington Examiner notes, before Russia's own election. Top operatives in one outlet's lede, outside consultants in the president's own statement — the title changes depending on which threat the title needs to survive.…
…(cont) Compare the paper trail that does exist. On September 9, Trump's own financial disclosures showed $135,000 in "Cash Gift for Holidays" checks, $45,000 apiece, to Natalie Harp and two other White House aides — gifts attributed to the president, itemized, dated, filed. That is the actual difference between "works for me" and "does not": one group gets a line item in a public record; the other gets a denial whenever the line item would be the embarrassing kind.
None of this needed inventing, because the White House had already rehearsed the move on the press itself. On August 30, Trump said he would report Kristen Welker to the FCC over something she had said about his endorsed candidates. By September 22, the Wall Street Journal was reporting he had weighed pulling the entire press corps out of the building. Threaten, then deny there was ever anything to threaten — the same toolkit, pointed first at the reporters and now at the advisers those reporters caught. The man who wanted the press out of the room is counting on the room forgetting what it already read: a Bosnian party's money went to two men the president now says were never his to begin with.
“You can't fire a guy who was never on the books — that's the whole trick. Call him a consultant and the money from some Bosnian party never has to show up on a disclosure form, while the assistant down the hall gets her name on a forty-five-grand holiday check in writing. That's not an oversight in the paperwork, that's the paperwork working exactly as designed.”
“These are private citizens doing private consulting, nothing requires the president to vet every contractor's side gig — that's just not how it works. Although he did threaten to fire them, so there must be some connection to the White House, which would mean — no, forget I said that. Outside consultants. Case closed.”
The receipts
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Trump threatened Wednesday to “terminate” two key advisers after they were revealed to have raked in “hundreds of thousands of dollars each” advising a pro-Russian political party in Bosnia as Republicans brace for a potential bloodbath in the Nov.
President Trump on Wednesday said he would terminate outside consultants Chris LaCivita and James Blair if their work conflicted with the White House, following a report that the two were in the Balkans advising a pro-Russian political party and made hundreds of thousands of dollars. Trump appeared to distance himself from the work…
· Trump promises NBC's Welker will be reported to FCC 'for rebuke or punishment' from the morgue, 30 Aug 2026
· Trump weighed removing all press from White House: Report from the morgue, 22 Sep 2026
· Trump gave Natalie Harp, other aides $45K gifts: Disclosures from the morgue, 9 Sep 2026
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.