Tentacles of the American octopus in Hungary

For many years now, political actors with close links to the global leftist network and to certain interest groups in the United States have been building up in Hungary. Two of the key figures are ex-PM Gordon Bajnai and Adam Ficsor, his former intelligence minister. This article, the second piece of the series exploring how the tentacles of the American octopus reached Hungary, will look at the intertwining of the Datadat group with the Democratic Party and George Soros's empire.

Hungarian Prime Minister Gordon Bajnai (L) and US Vice President Joe Biden speak with reporters after their private meeting December 4, 2009, inside the Roosevelt Room of the White House in Washington, DC. AFP Photo/Paul J. Richards (Photo by PAUL J. RICHARDS / AFP) Fotó: AFP/PAUL J. RICHARDS

• Shortly after Gordon Bajnai was appointed prime minister, he presented his plans to the US Embassy in Budapest.
• The US state department singled out Adam Ficsor during his time as intelligence minister and invited him to participate in an international leadership program overseas.
• Bajnai visited Washington in December 2009, where he held talks with the head of the IMF and then US Vice President Joe Biden.
• After the election failure in 2010, Bajnai traveled to the US again and was offered a guest lecturer position at Johns Hopkins University in Washington, one of the globalists' training centers.
• DatAdat, a group of firms affiliated to Bajnai and Ficsor, was staffed with US Democratic Party campaign organizers and consultants.
• Bajnai's firm works closely with ECFR, George Soros's think tank based in Berlin.
• Bajnai's inner circle is convinced that the Left's  ex-PM receives instructions from abroad, mainly from the US, as suggested by his old "battlefield buddy" Gyula Gansperger.

In the  first part of its article series, Magyar Nemzet explored the overseas threads of American influence extended to Hungary. In this piece, the focus will be on the most important actors in Hungary.

The growing American influence on the Left was already clear before the 2022 parliamentary election campaign kicked off. It was no coincidence that Peter Marki-Zay - who returned from the United States in 2018 and was elected mayor of Hodmezovasarhely - was picked as the Left's prime ministerial candidate. Billions were channeled into the Left's campaign through the organization called Action for Democracy, again from the US. The head of the NGO, David Koranyi – Budapest Mayor Gergely Karacsony's former chief adviser – performed his assignment from the capital while based in New York and not in Budapest.

However, this attempt at influencing did not start at this point, as some people in the background had been building the network long before. 

So let's take a look who are the people working to strengthen US influence in Hungary and with what methods.

The key figures of the dollar Left are known to have excellent overseas connections, which in itself would not be something special, but there is much more to it than political cooperation between equal partners.

Reporting to the US embassy in Budapest

Wikileaks document: Gordon Bajnai presented his plans for his government at the US Embassy in Budapest in 2009, showing a high level of trust and cooperation.

Former left-wing PM Gordon Bajnai and Adam Ficsor, his intelligence minister at the time, worked closely with the US Democrats and the global network funding the Democratic Party for many years. This is evidenced, among other things, by an event in 2009 that was made public by WikiLeaks, which specializes in disclosing classified government information.

Already in the prime ministerial post, Bajna paid a visit at the US embassy in Budapest to discuss the composition of the new government, detailed his plans and showed high level of trust and readiness to cooperate.

Among other issues, it was also discussed that the relevant parliamentary committee deadlocked and did not support the nomination of Adam Ficsor for the post of intelligence minister, but Bajnai stood by him.  As the committee vote was non-binding, the prime minister indicated that he would present the nomination letter to the president for signature.

 Ex-PM Ferenc Gyurcsany and Adam Ficsor, then chief of cabinet. Photo: MTI/Laszlo Beliczay

Ficsor, the selected

There was again full agreement between the left-wing prime minister and the US state department on the issue. This was no coincidence, as the documents disclosed by Wikileaks also indicate that the US embassy maintained good contacts with Adam Ficsor, identifying him as a possible candidate for the US state department's International Visitors Leadership Program (IVLP). 

 Wikileaks document: The US embassy maintains good contacts with Adam Ficsor, identifying him as a possible candidate for the US state department's International Visitors' program.

So the former intelligence minister was selected by the US state department, and after barely six months in government,  he traveled overseas to receive training.

Ficsor was minister of intelligence services for mere five months, when he resigned on the grounds that he considered his ministerial post incompatible with his intention to run as a candidate of the Socialists (MSZP) in the 2010 elections.  However, according to an earlier article  published by Index, the real reason for the unexpected resignation was the fact that Ficsor – after a few months of gaining insight into the operation of the Hungarian services and access to sensitive materials – accepted the Americans’ invitation and traveled to the US to participate in the IVLP program. A diplomatic cable published by WikiLeaks also revealed that the recommendation had been sent to the CIA and the defense department in addition to the state department.

Network building

As Hungary's prime minister, Gordon Bajnai was invited to Washington in December 2009 –  during the Obama presidency –  where he held talks with then US Vice President Joe Biden, and IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn, who was later embroiled in a sex scandal. The Hungarian premier  – who reassured the IMF and presented himself as a reliable and predictable partner  –  also announced that Hungary would join the US troop reinforcement strategy in Afghanistan, increasing the size of the Hungarian contingent by some 200 troops, a 60 per cent increase compared to the previous level. 

Of course, all this did not help the Hungarian Left in the 2010 elections at home. Shortly after the landslide defeat, Gordon Bajnai returned to the US to take up a visiting lecturer position at the Washington DC campus of Johns Hopkins University.

According to a statement from the secretariat at the time, Bajnai lectured at the university's School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) four times a year on the current developments of the European Union and the transformations in Central Europe. In addition to SAIS, the former prime minister also got involved in the work of the Center for Transatlantic Relations, headed by Daniel S Hamilton, who held senior positions in Bill Clinton's Department of State.
It was likely there and then that Bajnai and Ficsor started building up a network of connections, which they utilized in establishing the DatAdat group of companies and acquired and then managed the data of millions of Hungarian voters, and also orchestrated the Left's 2022 election campaign.

Left-wing American cadres at DatAdat

 

The operation of and individuals involved in DatAdat is further proof that Bajnai and Ficsor are committed to the American Left, and that they practically act as Hungarian liaisons or extended arms of the Democrats and the globalist network that supports them.

In addition to the Hungarian company, the DatAdat group consists of two branches in Estonia and one in Austria, filled with American left-wing campaign organizers and consultants.

One of the Estonian companies, Datapraxis OÜ, has American managers in addition to Viktor Szigetvari, who was Bajnai's former chief of staff. The director of the company is Mark Steitz, who previously designed a so-called targeting system for Democratic President Bill Clinton's 1992 campaign. The other director of DatAdat's Estonian branch is Laura Quinn, who was Joe Biden's senior communications and economic policy advisor and former Democratic Vice President Al Gore's deputy chief of staff. In addition, she held a leadership position in several presidential campaigns of the Democratic Party.

Former Democratic Vice President Al Gore at a 2023 conference. His former deputy chief of staff is also part of DatAdat. Photo: AFP/Bennett Raglin

Patrick Frank, the outreach director Datad.at, the Austrian subsidiary, is also an old Democratic party cadre, and previously held a similar position at the ActBlue organization, which is a fundraising platform for the American left. Patrick Frank also worked on Barack Obama's re-election campaign as a regional field director.

Benjy Cook, DatAdat's chief technology officer, is also linked to the left wing of the Democratic Party. In the 2020 elections, he supported the Democrats Abroad campaign to encourage Israeli-American citizens to vote in the election, and he also personally supported the candidacy of the well-known far-leftist politician Bernie Sanders.

The Bajnais' specialist adviser is another left-wing kingpin, Ari Rabin Havt, who as a career campaignist works alongside Democratic Party leaders such as former Secretary of State John Kerry or Bill Clinton's former Vice President Al Gore, as well as the already mentioned far-left Bernie Sanders.

Strong ties to Soros 

Datapraxis OÜ also closely cooperates with the European Council On Foreign Relations (ECFR), an organization marked by the name of George Soros. Based in Berlin, ECFR is an international think tank that conducts research on European foreign and security policy. The founder of the research institute is Mark Leonard, who is a regular contributor to the left-liberal international media organization called Project Syndicate, on whose platform Gorge Soros repeatedly attacks Hungary.

The most significant organizational unit of ECFR is the council, which serves as the 'strongest and most visible expression' of the organization's identity.

The council is comprised of many left-wing European decision-makers and experts;

from Hungary, members include, for example, Ferenc Gyurcsany's wife, Klara Dobrev, Gordon Bajnai, as well as George Soros, the founder and former president of the Open Society Foundations (OSF), and his son, Alexander Soros, the vice president of OSF. The public database of the Soros Foundation reveals that from 2016 to 2021, ECFR received 12 million dollars from OSF, moreover, nearly 80 percent of this huge amount was not paid for specific projects, but as 'general support'. (Open Society Foundations - Awarded Grants, Scholarships, and Fellowships )

In the past period, Datapraxis OÜ has cooperated dozens of times with ECFR in joint research projects, the aim of which was to gain deeper insight into European and Hungarian politics, using the partners, technological capabilities and questionnaire tools of the Bajnai operation.

In light of the above, the picture emerges that the DatAdat company group is not an actual profit-oriented company, but rather a globalist campaign organization whose primary task is to support the self-proclaimed progressive Left against patriotic, conservative forces.

In Hungary, their indisputable goal is to overthrow Viktor Orban and his government, through American funds and campaign tools.

Gyula Gansperger . Photo: MTI/Lajos Soos

Finally, it is worth recalling what an old comrade-in-arms, Gyula Gansperger, said about Gordon Bajnai in one of the audio recordings made public in connection with the City Hall building scandal in Budapest. 'In Hungary, basically, behind the movement of the entire opposition - I think - are foreign forces and financiers. […] Who are these forces? One part is the Soros empire, let's put it that way. The other part is the big capital groups, mainly in Germany and the United States, who would like to have influence here. I think Gordon is their man.”

Therefore, Bajnai's close circle also believes that the former prime minister of the Hungararian Left is controlled from abroad, mainly from America.

(To be continued)

Cover photo: Gordon Bajnai and then-Vice President Joe Biden. (Photo: AFP/Paul J. Richards)