Congress Hearing: Democrats Seek New Dodik Sanctions
A House subcommittee heard from a State Department official on the Western Balkans Monday, as Democrats released a report on 8.9 million dollars Republika Srpska paid to Washington lobbyists.
The House Foreign Affairs Committee’s Europe Subcommittee held a hearing on Monday, September 15, on US policy toward the Western Balkans. The same day, Democrats on the committee released a report showing that Republika Srpska’s authorities have spent at least 8.9 million dollars on lobbying in Washington since January 2025. The hearing also carried weight for Belgrade over a name raised outside the Bosnia and Herzegovina context: Republican Congressman Joe Wilson has repeatedly criticized Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic on X in recent weeks, including over his role in organizing the funeral of Ratko Mladic, a convicted war criminal.
The hearing, titled “US Policy and Security Challenges in the Western Balkans,” opened at 10 a.m. Washington time, or 4 p.m. Central European time. It was held by the Europe Subcommittee, chaired by Republican Congressman Keith Self of Texas. Daniel Lawton, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs, testified before lawmakers. The session was open to the public and streamed live on the committee’s website.
The subcommittee’s ranking Democrat, Congressman William Keating, is among the signatories of a letter sent to the State Department and the White House calling for a review of the decision to lift sanctions on Milorad Dodik and individuals tied to the Republika Srpska government. That same day, Keating also signed the House Foreign Affairs Committee Democrats’ report, titled “Quid Pro Quo in the Balkans: How the Trump Administration’s Bosnia Policy Enriches the President’s Personal Allies While Shortchanging the American People.”
The document links two administration decisions to the business interests of people close to Trump. The first is the lifting of sanctions on Dodik, carried out by the Trump administration in two steps: four of Dodik’s associates were removed from the list on October 17, 2025, and Dodik himself, along with his children Igor and Gorica and other related individuals and companies, followed on October 29. The second is the selection of AAFS Infrastructure and Energy, a company tied to Trump allies, as the investor behind the Southern Gas Interconnection, a pipeline that would link Bosnia and Herzegovina to Croatia’s gas network and the Krk terminal.
According to the report, Republika Srpska’s authorities have hired 11 lobbying firms in Washington since January 2025. Michael Flynn, Trump’s former national security adviser, received 100,000 dollars a month for advising and lobbying on behalf of the RS government, according to documents filed with the US Department of Justice. RRB Strategies, the firm of former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich, received more than 700,000 dollars, with goals that, per the report, included lifting sanctions on Dodik and removing High Representative Christian Schmidt. The law firm of Jesse Binnall, a member of Trump’s legal team, received about 191,000 dollars from Save America PAC, Trump’s political fund. The report also names former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani and activist Laura Loomer as having acted in Dodik’s favor.
On the pipeline, the report states that Joseph Flynn, Michael Flynn’s brother, and Binnall set up AAFS just four days after the US Embassy discussed with authorities in the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina the possibility of an American firm building and operating the project. The pipeline itself is estimated at around 350 million dollars, and together with three related power plants, the total value of the business could reach roughly 1.3 billion dollars. The report’s authors say AAFS has no demonstrated experience in energy or in the Western Balkans.
The Democrats’ report calls on the Trump administration to reinstate sanctions on Dodik and halt support for AAFS, and on Congress to investigate the company’s business capacity. It recommends that the European Union establish a joint sanctions regime against Dodik and others the authors say are destabilizing Bosnia and Herzegovina. Srpske.rs previously reported on the same story, on how Dodik and the Flynn brothers, according to Congressman Keating, were rewarded with business arrangements in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
This is a political and investigative document from the House Democratic minority, so its claims about conflicts of interest and the administration’s motives are the authors’ conclusions, not established facts. Neither the State Department nor the White House had responded to the report’s allegations as of last night. Separately, the Senate has scheduled hearings on September 16 and 17 for diplomatic nominees, including Ronald Johnson, whom Trump nominated as US ambassador to Bosnia and Herzegovina. Whether the hearings will shift the administration’s course on Dodik and Republika Srpska remains a question Washington has yet to answer.
