Accepting foreign interference warrants prison time in US

In the United States, the Foreign Agents Registration Act makes accepting foreign interference a crime punishable by a prison sentence, even in cases that are much less serious than last year's Hungarian parliamentary election campaign finance case. In the last ten years or so, there have been plenty of overseas examples of the application of this law.

Debrecen, 2019. november 19. Az iraki származású holland állampolgár, M. N. az ítélet kihirdetése után a Debreceni Ítélõtábla tárgyalótermében 2019. november 19-én. A most nyolc év szabadságvesztésre ítélt vádlott 2016 decemberében egy kisbusszal 36 külföldit, iraki, szír és iráni állampolgárokat akart Magyarországról Nyugat-Európába csempészni. A Debreceni Törvényszék korábban, elsõ fokon négy év négy hónap szabadságvesztésre ítélte a vádlottat, aki akkor enyhítésért fellebbezett. MTI/Czeglédi Zsolt Fotó: Czeglédi Zsolt

The NGO Action for Democracy was founded in the United States in early 2022, and is headed by none other than David Koranyi, the then capital city diplomacy advisor to Budapest Mayor Gergely Karacsony, and who was also previously chief advisor to Hungary's ex-Prime Minister Gordon Bajnai.

Shortly afterwards, Peter Marki-Zay published the full accounts of the donations received by his movement. Although it is not clear exactly from whom the sometimes staggering amounts were received, one thing is certain: eight "macro donations" of 1.86 billion forints in US dollars fattened MMM's bank account through Action for Democracy.

The National Security Committee heard a summary report from the National Information Center on the foreign interference  case in last year's parliamentary elections at its meeting on Wednesday. 

The Committee has requested that the report be declassified, and intends to publish it, should that request be honored.

The issue of illegal campaign financing was also raised at Thursday's Cabinet meeting, where Minister Gergely Gulyas, head of the PM's Office, said the Cabinet will support the declassification of the report upon receiving the request.

Anyone cognizant of [the contents] of the report can have no doubt that the descriptor 'dollar-left' is an almost too flattering moniker for the Hungarian left after what they committed against the country and its laws in the previous election campaign,

Minister Gulyas said. He also stressed that there is no democratic country in the world where foreign support for political parties is allowed, adding that on this scale, it is absolutely unprecedented.

It is also worth noting that President Joe Biden's son, Hunter Biden, has not yet been indicted under FARA, although, as right-wing opinion leader Tucker Carlson has pointed out, the younger Biden "was a foreign agent" but "never registered".

Cover photo: Illustration (Photo: MTI/Zsolt Czegledi )