Alleged Key Figure of Budapest Mayor's Micro-Donation Scandal Lobbied against Hungarian Interests in Brussels

While in the years before 2010, Csaba Tordai was a key figure of the Gyurcsany-Bajnai era, over the last decade he has developed close ties with George Soros's network. The lawyer, targeted by the authorities in connection with the suspicious fundraising activities of the 99 Movement founded by Budapest Mayor Gergely Karacsony, was a regular guest at events held of the speculator-backed rights groups. He lobbied in Brussels against Hungarian interests and was also involved in the creation up of an anti-government portal named Atlatszo, of which he was also the co-owner.

20220103 budapest a fovarosi kozgyulesnek a varoshaza eladasa ugyeben tartott vizsgalobizottsagi ulese havran zoltan magyar nmezet Fotó: Havran Zoltán

Csaba Tordai is no stranger to the world of Soros organizations. Besides co-founding Atlatszo.hu, which receives financing from George Soros, he served on the supervisory board of Atlatszo.hu Public Non-Profit Ltd., the company behind the portal, from 2011 to 2017. Additionally, from 2014 to 2019, he held a co-ownership stake in the 'investigative' liberal portal. He relinquished his ownership only when he accepted the invitation from Budapest Mayor Gergely Karacsony to become the chief legal advisor. However, according to Atlatszo's imprint, Mr. Tordai has retained his role as the portal's lawyer to this day."

In partnership with Soros and his rights defenders

The Hungarian partners of the news site, which regularly publishes anti-government content, include a number of organizations that have received some form of support from the Soros network in recent years, including the Hungarian Helsinki Committee, Transparency International Hungary, the Society for Civil Liberties and Political Capital. 

In the year 2021 alone, Atlatszo received more than HUF 17 million in grants from the stock exchange speculator's Open Society Foundations.

Mr Tordai, who served in both the Gyurcsany and Bajnai governments, including as a state secretary in the latter, also has ties to the stock speculator's network through former Prime Minister Gordon Bajnai. For instance, between 2011 and 2015, he was a member of the board of trustees of Mr Bajnai's Foundation for Home and Progress, from which the Egyutt (Together) party, dissolved in 2018, emerged. The foundation received nearly HUF 1 billion in funding from the Soros-linked Center for American Progress over the course of a few years.

George Soros's organization wasn't exactly frugal with its support for ex-PM Gordon Bajnai's foundation. Photo: Attila Kovács

Together with ex-PM Bajnai's Finance Minister Peter Oszko, Mr Tordai was co-owner of the now liquidated TMC First Consulting Ltd., which previously belonged to Civil Support Nonprofit Ltd., a company founded in the background of the Egyutt (Together) Movement, which was also linked to Mr Bajnai.

The former was active during the 2012–14 campaign period and before the 2022 elections, working to "increase the impact of Hungarian social-purpose organizations", according to their own definition.

Former Finance Minister Peter Oszko's and ex-PM Bajnai Gordon's joint company is no longer operational today. Photo: MTI/János Bugány

Left-wing activists and their recruitment campaign 

Broadly speaking, this activity can be described as the exercise of Soros-style soft-power, i.e. using their network of pseudo-civil organizations and their media contacts to improve the left's chances of victory. Among their collaborators listed on Civil Support Nonprofit's website are Soros's Central European University (CEU) and other organizations - like the Artemissiio Foundation and the Asimov Foundation - that have received financial support from the stock exchange speculator's network in recent years.

Csaba Tordai also was pro-active in promoting the left and its cause during the 2022 election campaign: he was head of the Clean Elections Foundation (Tiszta Valasztasokert Alapitvany), which was in charge of running the website of a left-wing activist recruitment initiative dubbed "20K - Twenty thousand people in ten thousand places across the country for a whole day", announced by Gordon Bajnai.

It is interesting to note that Tibor Sepsi, Mr Tordai's fellow attorney at Atlatszo, worked as an expert for the foundation during the period in question.

He lobbied against Hungary in Brussels 

Gergely Karacsony's chief legal advisor was a regular attendee at events organized by Soros's Open Society Foundations and the Society for Civil Liberties (TASZ), both generously backed by the stock exchange speculator. These events typically feature 'right defenders' who criticize Hungary's nationalist government in line with the leftist-liberal agenda.

Along this line, Mr Tordai is also a strong lobbyist against Hungary in Brussels. The lawyer has successfully prepared several constitutional complaints and submissions in connection with the Strasbourg litigation against the Hungarian state.

A few years ago, an article by the Hungarian Fire Wall Brigade (Tuzfalcsoport) identified Csaba Tordai among the Soros network's lawyers attempting to paralyze Hungarian government and public administration institutions through continuous public interest data requests. These lawyers regularly engage in related lawsuits.

As we highlighted in a previous article, a few days ago, Hungary's National Tax and Customs Office (NAV) conducted a house search at Mr Tordai's law firm. Here, authorities seized evidence supporting the crime of forgery in connection with a scandalous, HUF 500 million fundraising by the 99 Movement, founded by Budapest Mayor Karacsony. 

Authorities suspect that many records of this fundraising activity were forged in Mr Tordai's office. Although Mr Karacsony and his circles continue to claim that the 506 million forints came from micro-donations, this has been refuted by OTP, the bank acting as the 99 Movement's account manager. 

According to OTP's statement, the 'micro donation boxes' were too small for the type of cash Gabor Perjes, the movement's financial manager, had talked about. Furthermore, most of the money collected consisted of large-denomination euro bills with consecutive serial numbers, often without a gap, which rules out that they have ever been in circulation. Based on all this, OTP filed a police report in the case, and - in addition to Mr Tordai's office - authorities also conducted a search in the house of Gabor Perjés, where the 99 Movement was registered.

Cover photo: Csaba Tordai (Photo: Zoltán Havran)