Liviu Dragnea faces new lawsuit
Sentenced twice already and still behind bars, former Social Democrat leader Liviu Dragnea faces new trial
Ştefan Stoica, 18.05.2021, 13:50
The judicial saga involving the former Social Democrat high-handed leader up until 2 years ago, has no end in sight. While behind bars, Liviu Dragnea got more bad news: he was indicted by the National Anti-Corruption Directorate in a new case, with charges including influence peddling and misuse of authority in relation to his presence at president Donald Trumps inauguration in early 2017.
At the time, Dragnea was speaker of the Chamber of Deputies and the chief of the main ruling party in Romania, and snapshots of him meeting the White House leader paved the way for heavy speculation in Bucharest.
Prosecutors are now arguing that the ex Social Democrat leader misused his authority and influence as party leader to obtain undue benefits. Also indicted alongside Dragnea are three businessmen, charged with influence buying and with aiding and abetting influence buying.
Liviu Dragnea allegedly received from one of the businessmen undue benefits for himself and the party, consisting in access to the US presidents inauguration ceremony of January 17 – 21, 2017, in Washington, as part of a 250,000 USD benefits package. Access was apparently obtained through an American politician and businessman, vice-president of the presidential inauguration committee. With the help of the other 2 businessmen, lobby and political consulting services worth 30,000 USD were also provided to the Social Democratic Party. The money was paid in May 2017, by an offshore company based in the British Virgin Islands having bank accounts in Cyprus, prosecutors also say.
The defendant Liviu Dragnea misused his influence with the prime minister and other Cabinet members for the benefit of the Romanian businessman, whose interests in the military and intelligence fields Dragnea was supposed to promote.
Liviu Dragnea first received a suspended sentence for election fraud, but he only went to prison under a second, 3-and-a-half-year sentence, for inciting abuse of office while he was the chairman of the Teleorman County Council (south). Now he is applying for conditional release.
But his political heritage has become a burden for his party. The Social Democrats lost the 2019 election for the European Parliament and the presidential race, and although it won the general election last year it was left out of negotiations for the new government. The ex-leader is largely blamed for those failures, and is accused of attempting to bring the judiciary under political control only to get himself out of his legal troubles. (tr. A.M. Popescu)
