As highlighted in a previous article by Magyar Nemzet, three U.S. senators visited Hungary over the weekend as guests of Ambassador David Pressman. During a Sunday press conference at the U.S. Embassy in Budapest, they called on the Hungarian parliament to swiftly ratify Sweden's NATO accession. Rajmund Fekete, director of the Institute for Communism Research and a research fellow at the John Lukacs Institute at the National University of Public Service, emphasized to our newspaper earlier that these senators have harbored concerns about Hungary for years, particularly focusing on issues such as the Soros University or Sweden's NATO accession bid. The U.S. Embassy released several photos capturing discussions between the senators, Hungary's opposition leaders, and 'representatives of Hungarian NGOs and their experts.' This is where Sandor Lederer enters the picture.
Who is Mr Lederer?
K-Monitor, spearheaded by Mr Lederer, has from the get go been supported by George Soros's main foundation, the Open Society Foundations (OSF), but the organization also receives funds from other US sources. Sandor Lederer, K-Monitor's director, revealed in an earlier interview that "around 15-16 percent of our annual revenue last year came from OSF." K-Monitor has received $205,360 directly from OSF between 2017 and 2021, which is equivalent to $73,929,600 at the current 360-forint exchange rate.
According to information obtained by the Firewall Group (Tuzfalcsoport), K-Monitor also received HUF 18 million from OSIFE.
This organization is the European subsidiary of Soros's Open Society Foundations. However, George Soros is not Mr Lederer's only overseas supporter. In 2018, the K-Minitor's chief received an Obama Fellowship, which was awarded to merely 20 people out of 20,000 applicants. The scholarship was awarded by the Obama Foundation, the foundation of former US President Barack Obama.
According to Mr Lederer, the scholarship is not a cash grant but a mentorship. Interestingly, his publications in 2017 did not solely focus on corruption-related cases, as - in a book of essays funded by the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) - he also wrote about Russian energy at length. It's worth recalling the Hungarian parliamentary committee's remarks on NED with regard to the so-called "rolling dollars" scandal:
It's essentially the officialized presence of the CIA abroad.
What is less frequently discussed by left-wingers regarding Mr. Lederer is his entry into public life, which began with a cross-cutting stunt on November 1, 2000. The Regnum Marianum Church, located in Budapest's City Park, was demolished during the Rakosi era in 1951 to make room for a vast empty space designated for public parades and marches, known as Felvonulási Square. A monument later marked the church's site, but the wooden cross on it was sawed down and adorned with a drawing depicting a red star, courtesy of Mr Lederer and his four accomplices. He inscribed "Budapest Liberation Front" next to his drawing. During the court proceedings, Mr. Lederer denied premeditation, arguing that he happened to have a saw with him, "just in case."
Mr Lederer's cousin, Andras, is also a member of the Soros circle:
Since the fall of 2015, he has been working for the Helsinki Committee's asylum program ("advocacy manager, senior staff member"). Since 2002 Andras Lederer has been a member of SZDSZ (the Hungarian Social Democratic Party - ed.). From 2003 he served as national spokesman for New Generation. In 2004, he became the an organization's vice-president, and in 2006 its president. In 2008, he became a member of the influential national executive board of SZDSZ.
