Pardoned by Trump, Rod Blagojevich has new job: Lobbying for Bosnian Serbs

Less than two months after President Donald Trump pardoned Rod Blagojevich, the former Democratic governor of Illinois who served prison time on corruption charges has been hired to lobby on behalf of the Bosnian Serb republic.

The territory was formed as part of the 1995 Dayton Peace Accords that ended the conflict in Bosnia by setting up two ethnically dominated areas within the country, one led by ethnic Serbs and the other mostly Bosnian Muslim. They have lived in uneasy coexistence ever since, with parallel governments and leadership.

Bosnian Serb President Milorad Dodik has called for the region to unify with Serbia instead of remaining under Bosnian authority, and he has been sanctioned by the U.S. government for “corrupt activities and continued threats to the stability and territorial integrity” of Bosnia.

Blagojevich’s mission as a foreign agent, according to a lobbying contract made public Wednesday: to try to persuade U.S. officials to drop the sanctions against the territory’s officials, who are facing “what is perceived as a witch hunt,” and to oust the United Nations official who is trying to block Dodik’s separatist movement. Dodik was sentenced in a Bosnian court in February to a year in prison and banned from politics for six years.

Dodik’s effort to unify his territory with Serbia has been strongly opposed by the U.S. government. Redrawing borders in the region could reignite ethnic tensions that have not disappeared, risking a fresh outbreak of war and destroying the peace accords that were considered a feat of international diplomacy of the mid-1990s.

But Dodik has been an outspoken supporter of Trump, and has also aligned himself with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban and other right-wing leaders in Europe to whom Trump is sympathetic.

Trump had reportedly considered Blagojevich as a potential U.S. ambassador to Serbia, but on Friday he announced that he had picked former Arizona attorney general Mark Brnovich for the role. The contract with the Bosnian Serb republic was signed Thursday. Blagojevich was born in Chicago to two Serbian immigrants, and he has long been an active member of the city’s robust ethnic Serbian community.

Trump and Blagojevich go way back. The former governor appeared on Trump’s reality television show, “Celebrity Apprentice,” in 2010. Trump “fired” him for allegedly getting his facts wrong about the blockbuster Harry Potter book franchise while helming a related project.

Blagojevich was convicted on multiple charges of corruption in 2011, including trying to sell President Barack Obama’s vacated Senate seat. Trump commuted his 14-year sentence in 2020 and in February granted him a full pardon, which restores his voting privileges and other civil rights. “It was a sort of a terrible injustice,” Trump said of Blagojevich’s conviction.

The contract between the Bosnian Serb republic and Blagojevich’s firm, RRB Strategies, was filed under the Foreign Agents Registration Act. “As you will see in this proposal, we have strong and unique relationships within the new Trump Administration, which could be utilized to improve the relationship between our countries very effectively,” the contract says.

It calls for Blagojevich to engage in a sweep of activities to boost the Bosnian Serb republic, including taking aim at long-held U.S. government policies intended to keep the peace in Bosnia. The former governor commits to “lobbying to ensure that NATO forces do not exceed the limits of their powers and jurisdiction”; NATO retains a presence in the Bosnian capital of Sarajevo to stabilize the country.

Blagojevich will also “advocate for removing the Office of the High Representative,” traditionally a European official who retains some veto power over decision-making in the country who has at times clashed with Dodik and other ethnic Serb leaders there.

Blagojevich commits to maintaining “intensive and personal contacts” with senior State Department officials.

It’s not clear how much Blagojevich will be paid under the agreement. The fees are redacted in the version of the contract posted to the Justice Department website. Foreign agents are required to disclose their lobbying fees and contracts every six months.

Attorney Joshua Rosenstein, who specializes in laws governing foreign lobbying, said he has seen Social Security numbers and bank account information redacted from contracts before — but not lobbying fees.

“That’s very unusual,” he said. “The question is who redacted it. … The law requires a public disclosure of a lot of information because the underlying goal is to understand who is working for foreign principals and what the terms of those engagements are.”

The contract was signed by Zlatan Klokic, the minister for European integration and international cooperation for the Bosnian Serb republic. Klokic did not immediately respond to questions on Wednesday.

Federal lobbying records do not show Blagojevich registered for any other clients. Blagojevich used his longtime home address in Chicago’s Ravenswood neighborhood to register under FARA. He did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Richard Grenell, Trump’s former envoy to the Balkans, and Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law, are pursuing an estimated $1 billion in real estate projects in the region, including a luxury hotel and offices in the Serbian capital of Belgrade and a resort on an island off the Albanian coast.

The deal with the Bosnian Serb republic calls for Blagojevich to post “media statements immediately upon signing the contract.” On Monday, Blagojevich posted on X a statement attacking Dodik’s opponents and comparing them to the prosecutors of far-right French politician Marine Le Pen, who was convicted Monday of embezzlement and barred from running for office for five years.

“Left wing weaponized prosecutors, courts, & high representatives are trying to jail populist conservative leaders elected by the people & bar them from holding office,” Blagojevich wrote. “What they are doing to LePen in France, the left wing High Representative in Bosnia has been doing to Dodik, the pro Trump, pro Israel, duly elected President of the Republic of Srpska,” he wrote, using another name for the Bosnian Serb republic.

In response, Dodik tweeted: “Thank you, @realBlagojevich, for your support. When they cannot defeat you at the ballot box, they resort to weaponizing the judiciary in an attempt to destroy you. As you have rightly observed as well, this is a reality well known to Donald Trump.”