Rod Blagojevich has a new job: representing the interests of an ultranationalist politician known as the “Bosnian Bear” who has ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The former Illinois governor, who was pardoned in February by President Donald Trump, has agreed to lobby on behalf of the Republic of Srpska, a Serb-majority territory in Bosnia and Herzegovina long mired in the bitter ethnic tensions of the region.
RRB Strategies, Blagojevich’s firm, “will provide communications and public affairs support on behalf of the Republic of Srpska,” according to the registration statement he was required to file under the Foreign Agents Registration Act.
Bosnia and Herzegovina is held together by the Dayton Accords, a 1995 agreement that ended the Bosnian War and unified the country. Blagojevich told POLITICO on Wednesday that he hopes to “use whatever ability I have to persuade the decision-makers that we need to take another look at the Dayton Agreement and bring it in line with the realities of today.”
As he begins the role, Blagojevich is seeking to cast himself as one in a long line of populist leaders thwarted by “unelected bureaucrats who have exceeded their constitutional power,” from Trump to Marine Le Pen in France and Milorad Dodik, Srpska’s president
“I believe the weaponization that’s going on in Europe right now by the European Union against certain populist political leaders they don’t like started with me as a left of center Democratic governor in Illinois,” Blagojevich said. “I just know this. And then they took it to the next level and did it to President Trump.”
Dodik has long pushed for the Republic of Srpska, to secede from Bosnia and Herzegovina and join nearby Serbia. In February, he was sentenced to a year in prison for defying the country’s Constitutional Court. Dubbed “the Bosnian Bear,” for his physique and crude antics, Dodik has since fled to Moscow.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio in March condemned Dodik for “undermining Bosnia and Herzegovina’s institutions and threatening its security and stability” in a post on X.
Blagojevich was pardoned by Trump in February after being convicted in 2011 on charges of extortion and for trying to sell or trade the appointment of the Senate seat that had been held by Barack Obama. Acquainted from their days on The Celebrity Apprentice, Trump commuted Blagojevich’s sentence in 2020.
Trump weighed tapping Blagojevich to serve as U.S. ambassador to Serbia before picking former Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich for the post.
Blagojevich, whose parents were Serbian, touted to POLITICO his long experience working in Balkan politics. As a Democratic House representative in 1999, he traveled to Belgrade with the Rev. Jesse Jackson to clinch a deal that freed three American prisoners of war.
“I believe the Republic of Serbia and the Republic of Srpska can be bastions of Judea-Christian values in the Balkans just like Israel is in the Middle East,” he said. “And I’d like to be able to play a role in that and am fortunate to have been brought on and be hired to do just that.”
