Sali Berisha—the allegedly corrupt leader of Albania’s opposition party—wants help from Donald Trump. And Berisha, or someone backing him, is paying big bucks to get it.
Berisha is seeking removal of a “persona non grata” designation imposed by the US government because of what the Biden-era State Department said was his involvement in “in corrupt acts.” Berisha’s right-leaning Democratic Party of Albania recently hired Florida-based Continental Strategy to lobby the Trump administration under a contract that will pay the firm more than $6 million over two years. While lobbying disclosure forms filed by Continental don’t specifically mention the sanctions against Berisha, they note that the firm has already been in touch with the State Department on behalf of Berisha’s party.
Continental employs a roster of lobbyists with ties to Trumpworld, including Katie Wiles, whose mother is White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles. According to the Democratic Party of Albania, or DPA, the hefty tab for Continental’s work is being picked up by the “Make Albania Great Again Foundation”—an organization recently established by a New Jersey contractor and registered at a suburban residential address.
Berisha separately employs Chris LaCivita, who, along with Susie Wiles, led Trump’s 2024 campaign. LaCivita says he was brought on to provide electoral advice for the country’s parliamentary election next month, and that he is not advocating for Berisha in the United States. The veteran political operative has boosted Berisha’s efforts to sell himself in Albania as the candidate who can work with Trump. LaCivita has declined to say how he is being paid. (Trump, who is often willing to weigh in on foreign elections, has not opined on the Albanian contest, or on Berisha’s legal issues.)
The State Department in 2021 designated Berisha, along with his wife, son and daughter, under an “anti-kleptocracy” law that allows the department to bar officials and immediate family members suspected of corruption from entering the United States.
Announcing that designation in 2021, Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said that Berisha—who served as Albania’s prime minster in the 1990s and from 2005 to 2013—has been “involved in corrupt acts, such as misappropriation of public funds and interfering with public processes, including using his power for his own benefit and to enrich his political allies and his family members at the expense of the Albanian public’s confidence in their government institutions and public officials.”
In 2023, Albania’s parliament stripped Berisha of legal immunity. Last year, prosecutors in the country charged him with corruptly helping his son-in-law privatize public land to build 17 apartment buildings in Tirana, Albania’s capital. Berisha seems to be hoping that a victory in next month’s election, along with the possibility of assistance from Washington, will help him clear up his legal troubles—a truly Trump-like turnabout.
That’s a comparison that Berisha has encouraged. He’s blamed his prosecution on Prime Minister Edi Rama, the leader of the governing left-wing Socialist Party— and on an international leftist conspiracy led by the 94-year-old liberal philanthropist George Soros.
Continental Strategy has deep ties to Trump administration figures, including to Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who has the power to undo Berisha’s sanctions problem. In addition to Katie Wiles—whom the firm promoted to director of its DC and Jacksonville lobbying offices just after Trump named her mother as his chief of staff—Continental employs Alberto Martinez, a former Senate chief of staff for Rubio. The firm’s founder, Carlos Trujillo, is a former Florida congressman who Trump picked as ambassador to the Organization of Latin American States during his first term.
In a Foreign Agents Registration Act registration filed last week, the firm offered only a boilerplate description of its lobbying plans, saying its work involves steps like “establishing relationships with key stakeholders in the executive and legislative branches to facilitate policy development.”
But Continental appears to have quickly begun using administration connections to make contact with the State Department, which has the authority to remove Berisha’s designation. The firm’s FARA filing notes an April 17 phone call with Dan Holler, Rubio’s deputy chief of staff at State.
The Democratic Party of Albania also hired a separate law firm also run by Trujillo, Continental PLLC, to do legal work on Berisha’s behalf. Legal counsel is generally exempt from FARA, meaning the firm would not have to publicly disclose details of those efforts.
Melissa Stone, a spokesperson for Continental, said the firm “is supporting Berisha through their legal and lobby teams, all of which is being fully disclosed in accordance with the law.” Stone noted that Wiles is not herself registered under FARA to lobby for the Albanian party.
Continental’s contract says it will be paid $250,000 per month over two years for the lobbying work work. But the DPA itself isn’t paying the firm.
Instead, the work appears to be financed through a 73-year-old Albanian-American contractor in New Jersey. A contract filed as part of Continental’s FARA registration lists Nuredin Seci as “guarantor.” (The Albanian Top Channel news network reported that Seci is a member of Vatra, a US Albanian diaspora organization.)
The DPA has told reporters in Albania that Continental will be paid by a nonprofit called the “Make Albania Great Again Foundation,” which the party says is funded by Albanian-Americans. An organization with that name was established on March 27 this year based at a Woodcliff Lake, N.J., residence that appears to be owned by Seci’s daughter and son-in-law. The foundation does not have a website or a public footprint, nor does it appear in public listings of registered nonprofits. None of the family members responded to inquiries from Mother Jones.
The opaque funding scheme has drawn criticism from Albanian Prime Minister Rama and, reportedly, scrutiny from an Albanian anti-corruption unit. Albanian media has also questioned the source of the funds Continental is receiving. Some Albanian press outlets compared the financing setup to a 2017 lobbying contract in which the Democratic Party of Albania secured $500,000 in funding, also purportedly from a US businessman with Albanian ties, for lobbying the first Trump administration—an arrangement that resulted in criminal charges, though no conviction, against the party’s prior leader.
Mother Jones reported in 2018 that the funds for the party’s 2017 influence efforts appeared to come, via several shell companies, from Russia. And in 2023, when the State Department issued a summary of a US intelligence review detailing Russian efforts “to shape foreign political environments in Moscow’s favor,” an administration official told the AFP that Russia had spent roughly $500,000 backing the DPA in 2017. The DPA at the time was supporting some policies backed by Moscow. The DPA has denied receiving Russian backing. But last year, a team of investigative reporters at the BBC, the Seychelles Broadcasting Corporation, and Finance Uncovered revealed that a Scottish shell company that had paid the US lobbyist who worked in 2017 for the DPA had been secretly owned by a Moscow resident.
In 2017, the head of the DPA sought inroads with Trump, adopting a “Make Albania Great Again” slogan. Berisha has taken a similar tack in 2025, bragging to Albanians that his ties to Trump’s circle will benefit the small country if he wins.
LaCivita has said his work includes zero advocacy for Berisha in the United States. “I was retained to organize and provide strategic political guidance on the [Albanian] Democrat Party and its coalition for the upcoming elections May 11,” he told Mother Jones via text. “I do not lobby or consult in any other capacity other than political and campaigns period.”
LaCivita has not been shy, though, about helping Berisha tout his ties to Trump.
“We want to help elect a prime minister who is a true friend of the United States and who will successfully work with President Trump and the United States,” LaCivita said at a February press conference in Tirana after signing on with Berisha. LaCivita called Rama “a puppet of George Soros,” adding, “You cannot be a puppet of George Soros and a friend of United States.”
LaCivita’s team advising Berisha appears to include former Trump aide Paul Manafort—who was convicted in 2018 of crimes that included secretly lobbying for Ukraine’s former pro-Russian president—as well as longtime Trump pollster Tony Fabrizio. Trump pardoned Manafort in 2020.
LaCivita, who has around 75,000 followers on X, has regularly tweeted support for Berisha and attacks on Rama, and he has amplified Berisha’s criticism of the sanctions imposed by Blinken.
LaCivita’s rhetoric dovetails with efforts by Berisha allies in the US. In February, the DPA’s press director published an op-ed in the Washington Examiner urging Rubio to lift the sanctions on the Berisha; the op-ed suggested that Soros, and his son Alex Soros, were partly responsible for the DPA leader’s legal problems. A separate Examiner opinion piece—headlined, “Albania lawfare? How Biden aided Soros’s favorite narco-state”—cites Berisha’s “striking” similarities with Trump.
Another Berisha ally, Fetimir Mediu, met earlier this month with GOP Sens. Mike Lee (Utah) and John Cornyn (Texas). Mediu previously negotiated the deal for LaCivita to advise the Democratic Party of Albania, both men have said.
LaCivita has made clear the general message of the efforts to link Berisha to Trump. “I’m exporting MAGA,” he told the New York Times in February. “Make Albania Great Again!”
This post has been syndicated from Mother Jones, where it was published under this address.