"Sorry it took us longer to get back to you but the problem is that the speaking fee is a bit too high and exceeds our budget at the moment," Alina Mikhaleva, RT's head of marketing, wrote a Flynn associate about a month before the event. She said that RT hoped Flynn would be "front and central" at a conference associated with the gala "if there is a chance to reconsider the fee." The emails do not show how much Flynn had originally requested.