Why Is This Albanian Politician Hanging Out With Ken Paxton?

Albania's former defense minister Fatmir Mediu (left) has been photographed with prominent MAGA figures like Ken Paxton.Mother Jones illustration; Gent Shkullaku/AFP/Getty; Evan Vucci/AFP/Getty Get your news from a source that’s not owned and controlled by oligarchs. Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily. At the GOP midterm convention in Dallas last month, a curious guest posed for pictures with Ken Paxton and other MAGA dignitaries. Fatmir Mediu, a 59-year-old Albanian parliamentarian, wore a dark suit, a big security badge, and a pin that included the Albanian and American flags. At his side was Sali Berisha, the leader of Albania’s main opposition party, who posted a photo on X. Berisha can be seen to Paxton’s left, and a smiling Mediu is on Paxton’s right. To understand Mediu’s interest in American politics, you have to go back to March 15, 2008. On that day, in an Albanian village called Gerdec, a former army barracks full of excess munitions exploded. A series of massive blasts killed 26 people, injured hundreds, and leveled or damaged thousands of buildings. Investigators, including a team from the US Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, later faulted egregious safety violations at the facility. Those included a private contractor using untrained local workers, some of them children, to dismantle live ammunition. At the time, Mediu was serving as the country’s defense minister. Families of victims and political opponents of Albania’s then-ruling Democratic Party alleged Mediu and other officials had overlooked safety concerns. Albanian prosecutors later charged Mediu, who resigned shortly after the disaster, with abuse of his position related to his failure to oversee the contractor. Mediu has denied wrongdoing, and the case remains unresolved amid wrangling over whether he had parliamentary immunity protecting him from criminal charges. In a June 2008 letter to the State Department, the chair of the US House Oversight Committee cited an allegation reported by the New York Times that Mediu had accepted kickbacks related to a scandal featuring an American military contractor called AEY. (Mediu denied that allegation and was never criminally charged over it.) Four men connected to the American company were later convicted of fraud for selling aging Chinese-manufactured ammunition to the US military for use in Afghanistan, after altering its packaging in Albania to mask its true origin. This scandal was depicted in the 2016 movie War Dogs. Eighteen years after those events, various players have served prison sentences or died. But Mediu appears to be thriving. He is member of parliament representing a minor party closely aligned with Berisha’s. He’s a frequent international traveler, who seems to function as the Albanian opposition’s liaison to the American right. Mediu—who an associate said favors well-tailored suits and expensive watches—often attends the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington and international conservative conferences. He has built relationships with former Trump campaign co-chair Chris LaCivita and has met Justice Department officials and a slew of Texas lawmakers. But Mediu appears to have been especially successful in cultivating Paxton. The controversial Texas attorney general has interacted repeatedly with Mediu over the last four years, including in Albania. This year, Mediu, along with Berisha, appears to have helped Paxton raise money from Albanian Americans in the United States. Mediu, meanwhile, seems to be using his American political ties as he seeks US government help pressuring Albanian prosecutors to back off their longstanding case against him. Mediu and a representative for Berisha’s Democratic Party of Albania did not respond to detailed questions from Mother Jones. Paxton’s Senate campaign against Democrat James Talarico has been dogged by ethics questions. Media reports have highlighted Paxton allegedly stealing a $1,000 Montblanc pen in 2012 (he claimed it was a mix-up); his 2015 indictment for securities fraud (The DOJ dropped the charges after he paid $300,000 of restitution in 2024); his 2023 impeachment in Texas (the state Senate acquitted Paxton); various investments with questionable partners; and his reported partying with two international fugitives at a 2024 New Year’s Eve party in Dubai. Paxton has denied any wrongdoing in all these matters. Amid those issues, Paxton’s relationship with Mediu, Berisha, and their associates has drawn more modest attention. The Texas Observer reported in 2023 on a trip that Paxton and his now-estranged wife Angela took to Europe the previous year with a major campaign donor who was working as a lobbyist promoting a telecom startup. When the Paxton’s visited Tirana, Albania’s capital, Mediu hosted them. The state of Texas paid nearly $80,000 for that trip, which included a security detail for the Paxtons, according to the Observer. That’s part of the $3.1 million in state funds that Paxton has spent on 350 trips outside of Texas since 2015 on which he brought a security detail, the New York Times reported this week. In January 2025, Mediu and Albanian real estate magnate Bashkim Ulaj—a long-time Berisha ally—stayed in Washington hotel rooms that Paxton’s state office had booked, the Texas Bullpen reported last year. The rooms were for Trump’s inauguration and people watching the Texas AG’s office argue a case before the US Supreme Court around that time. Other people who received rooms from the same hotel block included major Paxton donors. Paxton’s office has said the nonrefundable rooms would have gone unused because a winter storm had interfered with Texas officials’ travel and that the people who ultimately used the rooms reimbursed the state. But the office has not explained what the Albanian men were doing there. Federal Election Commission records show that Paxton this year received $2,000 from Ahmet Ulaj, 75, and $8,000 from Astrit Ulaj, 59, both residents of New Jersey, who are brothers of Bashkim Ulaj. Two other individuals—Arbi Ulaj and Arlind Ulaj—each gave Paxton’s campaign $5,000. Both those men are in their mid-twenties and have shared an address with Astrit Ulaj. Ahmet, Astrit, and Baskim Ulaj jointly own an Albanian media company and ABA Blue Borgo, a controversial luxury development on the northern Albanian coast. Critics have held protests, arguing the developers illegally seized land for the project from local residents. The developers have countered that they acquired the land legally. In an email to Mother Jones, Astrit Ulaj said that he and his brother Ahmet “both donated to Ken Paxton because we thought he was worth supporting, just as we have supported other candidates over the years. These were personal donations, made with our own money, they were publicly reported, and have nothing to do with our business interests.” “Neither of us has business dealings with Ken Paxton, Fatmir Mediu or Sali Berisha, and neither does Bashkim,” UIaj added. Arlind Ulaj, reached by phone, declined to comment. Arbi Ulaj did not respond to a query. On September 9 of this year, while Mediu and Berisha were in Dallas, Paxton’s campaign recorded $37,000 in donations from six people in the Dallas the area. Several of those donors, reached by Mother Jones, said they are involved in Albanian-American activism. Dritan Nokshigi of Mesquite, Texas, said in phone interviews that he donated $5,000 to Paxton in order to attend a September 7 dinner with Berisha in another Dallas suburb. Nokshigi recalled that Mediu also attended the dinner. “I wanted to go and eat dinner with Sali Berisha,” Nokshigi told Mother Jones, noting he comes from the same northern Albanian town as the opposition leader. “That was the only reason. I’m not a rich man.” “I never vote,” Nokshigi said. “I don’t like politicians. They’re all the same.” Two days later, on September 9, Berisha and Mediu attended a separate event held at Nokshiga’s pizzeria in Mesquite, where the Albanian officials received keys to the city from Mesquite Mayor Daniel Alemán. The Paxton campaign did not respond to a list of questions about his ties to Mediu and other Albanian figures. Neither Mediu nor the Democratic Party of Albania responded to questions about why Berisha and Mediu were helping raise money for a Senate campaign in Texas. During the Biden administration, the State Department placed Berisha and members of his family on a “persona non grata” list, which barred them from traveling to the United States. Secretary of State Antony Blinken attributed the designation to Berisha’s “involvement in significant corruption.” Berisha denies wrongdoing, claiming the allegations, the subject of an ongoing criminal case in Albania, are politically motivated. Last year, the Democratic Party of Albania retained Continental Strategy LLP, a firm that includes a former top aide to Secretary of State Marco Rubio and the daughter of White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, to advocate for the removal of the sanctions. Following lobbying by the firm, the State Department granted Berisha a visa waiver that allowed him to travel to the US for the convention. A spokesperson for Continental told Mother Jones last month that it has received $750,000 for that work. The payments came from an organization called the Make Albania Great Again Foundation, a nonprofit launched last year by Nuredin Seci, an Albanian American contractor from New Jersey. Seci has said the organization, which has not filed any paperwork detailing its financing, is bankrolled by Albanian Americans. This funding arrangement has drawn scrutiny in Albania, including a reported investigation by the country’s the Special Structure Against Corruption and Organized Crime, known as SPAK. That office—which has not detailed the status of this reported probe—is the same agency that has also brought criminal cases against Berisha and Mediu. Mediu has previously worked to build ties to various Texas Republicans, including Sens. Ted Cruz and John Cornyn, deploying a connected Texas lobbyist in 2022 to seek meetings with the lawmakers. Since Trump returned to office, Mediu has touted meetings with Cruz; Texas GOP Reps. Pete Sessions, Brandon Gill, Beth Van Duyne, and Keith Self; and others. Mediu in 2024 met LaCivita, who co-managed Trump’s 2024 campaign, at a Washington conference for right-leaning parties. Mediu recruited LaCivita to work as an adviser to Berisha ahead of Albania’s 2025 parliamentary election. LaCivita has said he did no US lobbying for Berisha, but he used his Trumpworld stature to help Berisha advertise his ties to the US president. “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 in one appearance in Tirana. The Democratic Party of Albania reported paying LaCivita’s firm more than $1.6 million for his work there. After obtaining his visa waiver, Berisha traveled in early September 2026 to New Jersey, where he met with Albanian Americans. Then, joined by Mediu, he attended the Republican midterm convention in Dallas. In additional to Paxton, the pair snapped pictures there with a host of prominent MAGA figures, including Republican National Committee chair Joe Gruters; Medicare and Medicaid administrator Mehmet Oz; and former DOJ pardon attorney Ed Martin. While courting the MAGA movement, Mediu has tried to use the connections he has made to seek help with his own legal problems. Last year, for example, Mediu claimed to have submitted to an Albanian court a letter from six American congressmen urging that he not be prosecuted, though he has apparently not made the letter public. Mediu announced in June 2025 that he had met with Aaron Reitz, a former Paxton deputy, who at the time was DOJ’s Assistant Attorney General for the department’s Office of Legal Policy. Mediu said that he had pressed for the Justice Department to oppose the politicization of the Albania’s judiciary, according to Albanian news reports. Reitz, now the US Attorney for the Southern District of Texas, did not respond to questions. Mediu also met with a Justice Department official in September 2025 to seek Trump administration help with his ongoing criminal prosecution over the Gerdec explosion, according to a person familiar with the meeting. Mediu pressed in the meeting for help from DOJ’s Office of Overseas Prosecutorial Development, Assistance & Training. That office provides support to SPAK, the Albanian prosecutorial body that brought the criminal cases against both Berisha and Mediu. Last month during the GOP convention, Berisha and Mediu took a picture with with Attorney General Todd Blanche and Associate Attorney General Stanley Woodward. Berisha later claimed the interaction represented “an important meeting” for Albania-US relations. The Justice Department disputes that. “There was no meeting,” a spokesperson told Mother Jones via email. “The hotel guest approached the Attorney General in the lobby and the Attorney General agreed, as he often does, to pose for a picture.” The spokesperson did not answer questions about Mediu’s other contacts with DOJ officials. So far, there’s no indication that Mediu has succeeded in winning Trump administration help with his case. But he clearly isn’t giving up. And his energetic support for powerful Americans like Ken Paxton appears to reflect the hope that in an increasingly transactional US capital, they will return the favor.