Former prime mini­ster of Iceland and Centre Party leader Sig­mundur Davíð Gunn­laugs­son met with Republican staf­fers at a secret meeting in Got­hen­burg, Sweden, according to fil­ings with the US Senate. The trip was funded by Turning Point Action, a political advocacy group founded by Charlie Kirk and connected to US Pres­ident Donald Trump and his MAGA-movem­ent.

According to fil­ings of tra­vel expenses with the US Senate, five chiefs of staff for US senators aligned with Mr Trump attended the trip, titled “The 2025 Transatlantic Study Trip”, on August 20-24 last year. The staf­fers met with high-level centre-right leaders in Nordic politics during stops in Stockholm, Haninge and Got­hen­burg in Sweden, and Oslo, Norway.

The staf­fers who filed reports were Sean Riley, chief of staff for senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, Lisa Goeas, chief of staff for senator Joni Ernst of Iowa, Amelia Breinig, chief of staff for senator Peter Ricketts of Nebraska, Rebecca Angelson, chief of staff for senator Jon Husted of Ohio, and Tucker Knott, then chief of staff for senator Ted Budd of North Carolina, who now works for lobby­ing firm Ballard Partners.

“This trip is directly connected to my official duties through its focus on Arctic and transatlantic security, defense-industrial resilience, and Western cultural align­ment - all of which supp­ort core U.S. national inter­ests,” Knott’s fil­ing with the US Senate details.

Turning Point COO Tyler Bowyer signed the documents on behalf of Turning Point Action, which is allowed to participate in political advocacy unlike its sister organisation, Turning Point USA. Bowyer is a def­end­ant in the case aga­inst 11 Arizona Republicans and seven Trump associates accused of the fake electors plot, intended to falsely claim that Trump had won the state in the 2020 Pres­idential Election he lost to Joe Biden.

Sean Riley, who attended the trip was also revealed to have participated in an attempt to hand a list of fake electors to Vice Pres­ident Mike Pence on January 6 2021, as a joint session of Congress was set to ratify Mr Biden’s election win. Turning Point aided the “Stop the Steal” mass prot­ests on that day that tur­ned into the infamous insurrection in the Capitol.

Micah ReaDirector of Faith Based Ini­ti­ati­ves at the US Depart­ment of Commerce claimed he was going on a per­sonal trip, while an itiner­ary submitted to the US Senate says he spoke at a meeting with Republican staf­fers.

None of the trip’s attendees posted on social media about their attendance, as far as Heim­ildin can tell, sug­gest­ing a certain secrecy surrounding the events. Only Micah Rea, Director of Faith Based Ini­ti­ati­ves at the US Depart­ment of Commerce, shared anyt­hing online about his tra­vels. “Off to Sweden and Norway this week for a per­sonal trip!” he posted on Instagram along with a photo of him­self seated on an airplane. According to the itiner­ary, reported to the US Senate, Mr Rea met with the Republican staf­fers along with Baroness Philippa Stroud, a mem­ber of the UK House of Lords for the Conservative Party, in Oslo on the final day of the trip.

Funding from rich, right-wing US donors

According to the fil­ings, the trip was org­an­ised by Nordic Republicans board mem­ber Katie Hagström, who operates the advis­ory firm Valstand Stra­teg­ies in Sweden and the think tank Nordic Sidebar. Centre Party mem­bers have been invited to join events hosted by the think tank along with New Direction, a European Parli­ament-funded think tank connected to the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) Party, and financed partly by organisations that have received fund­ing from US oil billionaire and supp­orter of right-wing causes Charles Koch and his late brother David. Robert Tyler of New Direction was a guest at the Got­hen­burg dinner panel along with Mr Gunn­laugs­son, Ms Hagström and mem­ber of European Parli­ament for the far-right Swedish Democrats, Charlie Weimers.

Jane MayerThe New Yorker reporter says that groups funded by US billionaires are spr­ea­d­ing MAGA-ideo­logy worldwide.

None of Mr Gunn­laugs­son, the five Republican staf­fers who filed reports with the US Senate, Ms Hagström, Mr Tyler or Mr Weimers responded to Heim­ildin’s inquiries. Mr Gunn­laugs­son did not answer whether a for­eign entity paid his tra­vel expenses. Members of Alþingi, Iceland’s parli­ament, are required to report any gifts, such as tra­vel expenses, to Alþingi according to ethics rules. Mr Gunn­laugs­son has not reported any such gifts.

“Turning Point is funded by ultra-rich right-wing donors,” investigative reporter Jane Mayer with The New Yorker expla­ins. “They also evidently want to export Kirk’s extrem­ist ideo­logy worldwide. Among the top donors are Isaac Perlmutter, who is a close fri­end of Donald Trump, and the Uihlein family, who are also major MAGA donors.”

"It was specifically the dark money group that financed that trip”

Ms Mayer has written extensi­vely about billionaire donor fund­ing in US politics, including the Koch-brothers, as detailed in her 2016 book Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right. “Turning Point Action, which sponsored the congressional delegation that you described, is the dark money offshoot of the main organization, Turning Point USA,” she tells Heim­ildin. “So it was specifically the dark money group that financed that trip.”

Joining the ECR party

Mr Gunn­laugs­son’s Centre Party is currently in the process of becoming a mem­ber of the ECR, Heim­ildin has found. Neither party responded to Heim­ildin’s inquiries to confirm this.

Iceland is not a mem­ber of the European Union, but many of the country's political parties are full or associate mem­bers of Euro­p­arties. ECR includes conservative and “Eur­or­ea­list” parties in the European Parli­ament, while parties such as Mr Trump’s Republican Party and Benjamin Net­anyahu’s Likud Party in Israel are “global partners”. The Financial Times have recently reported on the Trump administration’s plans to fund ideologically-aligned entities in Europe.

Euro­p­arties are not permitted to receive corporate fund­ing from outside the European Union. However, their think tanks, including ECR’s New Direction, can do so. The think tank has received fund­ing from entities connected Charles Koch such as the Heritage Foundation, while the Koch-funded Atlas Network is connected to Icelandic think tank The Icelandic Research Centre for Innovation and Economic Growth. Its director, Hannes Hólm­steinn Giss­ur­ar­son, pro­fessor emeritus of political science at the Uni­versity of Iceland, is a frequent contributor to New Direction and connected to activities of the Koch-funded groups the Cato Institute and Students for Liberty, and conservative Icelandic political parties the Independence Party and Mr Gunn­laugs­son’s Centre Party.

“Their chief aim has been to keep America and the rest of the world reli­ant on fossil fuels because they are in the fossil fuel business,” Mayer says of the Koch-brothers' political advocacy.

Other Centre Party mem­bers have attended events org­an­ised by New Direction, Nordic Sidebar or ECR-affili­ates, such as the Atreju festi­val of Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s Brothers of Italy party, which was attended by several Centre Party youth mem­bers. Mr Gunn­laugs­son was a spea­ker at the event and has been a keynote spea­ker at several New Direction events. One Centre Party candidate spoke at a Nordic Sidebar and New Direction-hosted event in Helsinki along with Trump-funded journalist and Turning Point conference spea­ker James O’Keefe, previously with Project Veritas.

They did not respond to Heim­ildin’s questions on who financed their tra­vel to these events. Mr Giss­ur­ar­son, however, said that New Direction gener­ally pays the tra­vel expenses of spea­kers at the think tank’s events, add­ing that the think tank has financed his publ­is­hed writing on conservative politics.

Mr Gunn­laugs­son was Iceland’s prime mini­ster from 2013 to 2016, then chairman of the agrarian Progressive Party. In the rel­e­ase of the Panama Papers he was revealed to have owned a company in the tax haven British Virgin Islands, which he had not disclosed. He resigned as prime mini­ster, claiming that for­eign billionaires, such as the Hung­arian-American George Soros, had conspired aga­inst him. He went on to found the Centre Party, which became increasingly vocal about anti-immigration and climate sceptical views, while oppos­ing European cooperation. It is now poll­ing as the second-largest party in Iceland.