How to Win Friends and Influence People: An Incomplete Guide to Milorad Dodik's Lobbyists (Part I)

Dodik enlists Epstein associates and former Mossad agents to influence the American government

I want to write about other places and things, but unfortunately, Aleksandar Vučić and Milorad Dodik keep providing us with new material. And when Serbian politics intersect with American corruption, I am congenitally incapable of holding my tongue. Between the Epstein files and Republika Srpksa’s filings in the FARA database, I have been spending an inordinate amount of time on the website of the US Department of Justice. The story emerging out of Republika Srpska looks like it was generated by putting a bunch of recent international headlines in a blender and reassembling them in new combinations. Trump, Epstein, Mossad, Iran, even ICE: it’s all there. This report, which barely scratches the surface, is so long that I had to divide it up into two separate posts.

Last week, you’ll recall I wrote about Dodik’s two big international trips: first to Israel, where he received an award in the Knesset, and then to the United States, where he attended Trump’s Prayer Breakfast and met with top administration officials, including Pete Hegseth and Karoline Leavitt. The trip to Washington was viewed as a major success by Dodik supporters, and for good reason: Just a few months ago, the former President of Republika Srpska was under crippling US sanctions imposed by the outgoing Obama administration in 2017. But last fall, Dodik managed to get the Trump administration to lift those sanctions. And last week, he attended an NBA game in Washington and successfully nabbed photo-ops with many political celebrities, an astonishing turnaround for a man who’d been blacklisted by the United States until only recently. Now we know how he managed to execute the mother of all comebacks: by spending millions of dollars on lobbying firms, including one run by a former Israeli arms dealer who also used to work for Mossad.

Dodik has a nasty lobbying habit (I’ve detailed some of those relationships before). He has spent unusually large sums of money purchasing American influence from Western lobbying firms while railing against Western influence in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Though he fashions himself a sovereigntist a la Orbán, Dodik seeks not to rid Bosnia of foreign influence but rather to swap one foreign patronage and influence network for another. In concrete terms, he wants to get rid of the liberal, “globalist cabal” that is more friendly to Bosniak interests and replace it with the right-wing MAGA conservative network that is more friendly to Serbian and Croatian (read: Christian) interests. This all sounds crude and unfortunately very civilizational, but it is how Dodik and many others in Bosnia view the stakes.

At a press conference on Tuesday, Bosnian Minister for Foreign Affairs, Elmedin Konaković, publicized the name of Dodik’s newest lobbying firm, the Israeli-Canadian company Dickens and Madson, though documents describing the relationship have already been on the FARA website for months. FARA, for those unaware, is an acronym for the US Foreign Agents’ Registrations Act, which mandates that “foreign agents”–usually lobbyists, lawyers, and consultants–working on behalf of foreign governments register their working relationship with the Department of Justice. In one FARA filing that Dickens and Madson has with Republika Srpska, the aim of the relationship is stated clearly: “The Republic of Srpska seeks to secure the support of the United States and obtain independence from Bosnia and Herzegovina.”

According to the same filing, Dodik paid a retainer of $2 million in early September, followed by two subsequent payments of $1 million each later that month, for a total of $4 million paid to Dickens and Madson in September alone. For that hefty price tag, Dickens and Madson agreed to “provide advice and counsel” to Repubika Srpska and “to advocate before the executive and/or legislative branches” of the US government to “secure political support to consolidate and strengthen the political position of the Republic of Srpska”.

Dickens and Madson also agreed “to arrange meetings with government officials and provide public relations services to further [Republika Srpska’s] goals and activities.” In other words, we now have a better idea about who arranged all those photo-ops with Trump officials.

Before we get into the eccentric Israeli personality who is Dodik’s Montreal-based lobbyist for Dickens and Madson, it’s important to stress that Republika Srpska is paying many other lobbying firms as well. The sub-state entity also employs former Illinois governor and ex-con Rod Blagojevich. His lobbying firm is called RRB Strategies, and according to FARA filings, it has already met one of its goals, which was having US sanctions on Dodik and his associates lifted. Other aims as yet unmet include working to eliminate Bosnia’s Office of the High Representative (OHR), a colonial-style position currently occupied by German diplomat Christian Schmidt; the OHR possesses sweeping powers over Bosnia’s internal affairs. Another of Blagojevic’s goals for Republika Srpska is to “encourage legal procedure” against Schmidt for “illegally occupying” the Office of High Representative.

Serbian-American lobbyist Rod Blagojevich with Dodik. All smiles after sanctions are lifted.

Another American lobbying firm retained by Republika Srpska is Stokes Strategies, which arranges congressional visits and handles most of the for-profit business that Republika Srpska conducts. Yet another lobbying firm enlisted by Republika Srpska is MO Strategies, headed by veteran Republican advisor Martin Obst, who receives $10,000 per month for his services. Also retained is Zell and Associates, which has agreed to engage in “efforts intended to influence US government officials and segments of the US public”; Republika Srpska’s lobbyist at Zell and Associates is Israeli-American lawyer and chairman of Republicans Overseas Israel Marc Zell. Other registered agents working on behalf of the entity include GS2 Law, Schifanelli Law, the Texas-based law firm McGinnis Lochridge, and Becker and Poliakoff, which, among other things, will “promote the public re-examination of the Dayton Peace Accords within the United States”.