Hungary’s newly elected prime minister isn’t the only one eager to investigate alleged payments from his government to the U.S.-based Conservative Political Action Conference.
Prime Minister-elect Péter Magyar dropped a geopolitical bombshell last week when he said outgoing Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s government had made payments to the influential pro-Trump organization.
“I believe the state should never have financed them in the first place,” Magyar told CNN. “It was a crime.”
The prime minister-elect said CPAC is welcome in Hungary — but added that the payments will end.
CPAC’s chairman, Matt Schlapp, responded to Magyar’s comments in a post on X that didn’t address the payments claim, saying only that he was “very gratified” that the Hungarian leader “has invited us back.”
A smattering of U.S.-based geopolitical and legal experts have called for federal investigators to look into the alleged payments. On Monday, Rep. Mike Levin, D-Calif., did as well.
“Foreign governments are barred from spending money in American elections, and Americans are forbidden from soliciting or accepting it. If these allegations are true, this is a direct attack on the integrity of American democracy,” Levin wrote on X.
“We need a full investigation by Congress, the FEC, and the DOJ. The American people deserve to know exactly what flowed from Orbán’s government into this country’s political ecosystem, who was on the receiving end, and what it bought,” he added.
The Federal Election Commission and the Justice Department are both agencies that the Trump administration has sought to pervert and place under the president’s direct control, so the most plausible route to a thorough investigation here appears to be through a Democratic-led House — if Democrats are able to secure control of the House in the midterms.
Every American should want to know whether and to what extent CPAC — one of the nation’s pre-eminent conservative activist groups — was receiving funds from a government like Orbán’s regime, which was known for its abject servility to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The alleged payments are particularly interesting in light of accusations being lobbed at liberals. For example, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, a CPAC-endorsed Senate candidate, said Monday that he had filed a federal lawsuit accusing liberal fundraising group ActBlue of “lying about its donation processes that allow fraudulent and foreign donations.” Last year, Trump directed the DOJ to target ActBlue while peddling similar accusations.
An ActBlue spokesperson told Fox 7 Austin in Texas that Paxton’s lawsuit amounts to political targeting, saying: “Our platform has done more than any other, regardless of party, to prevent improper donations and protect donors. Full stop.”
Note the double standard. ActBlue has vehemently denied that it received improper donations — and conservatives target the group anyway.
CPAC doesn’t deny that it received payments from the illiberal Orbán regime. And yet Republicans don’t seem to care.
Ja’han Jones is an MS NOW opinion blogger. He previously wrote The ReidOut Blog.