Recorder documentary about the police: Even when it canceled the 2024 elections, the Romanian state did not talk about “modus operandi” and “destabilization of institutions”
When the Presidential Administration declassified CSAT documents about the 2024 election, perhaps the report that included the most hard facts was that of the Interior Ministry's secret service.
It is less known to the public, but the MAI's cybersecurity division has been trained intensively in recent years. Romanian officers were in permanent contact with their counterparts in the EU. The patterns of disinformation campaigns practiced in Europe have reached us and have been traced. Not always defused.
What the secret service of the police said in the report to CSAT
This explains why, for example, the MAI report to CSAT is the one that detailed the Tik Tok campaign carried out with influencers in favor of Călin Georgescu, but paid for with PNL money. The secret service of the police even included the name of the company that did it, Kensington de PR, the company that worked with the PNL. And that still works today.
It was also the police who shot a businessman. He met with someone connected to the Russian Federation. “The episode is anonymized in the report, but it follows from the context that it is very likely that there was an ambient recording of the discussion. The secret service claims that they discussed the initiation of “actions likely to affect the sovereignty of the Romanian state”.
The MAI note to CSAT does not say whether sovereignty was affected. The report merely says that “similar patterns existed” when Russia attacked Ukraine in 2022. It is not the intelligence services that draw the conclusions, but the decision-makers. The MAI report can be read here.
Immediate reaction to “Enslaved Police”
Instead, recently, after the appearance of a Recorder documentary, MAI drew conclusions. Quickly.
The police spokesperson, Georgian Drăgan launched a long “indictment” in a press conference. Even if he was employed by the Recorder, the MAI officer was not doing a greater service to the documentary “Enslaved Police”.
Coming out to give the answer, the “voice of the MAI” managed to confirm what the Recorder had not so strongly supported: that the heads of the MAI act as a caste, ready for anything if their position is threatened.
The Recorder claimed, based on official data received from police inspectorates, that around 600 important posts in the system are filled by “delegation”.
“Delegation” means an increased degree of reliance on normal competitive appointments. What was the MAI's reaction?
“Destabilization of the institutions of the Romanian state”
The findings and criticisms of the organization of the MAI were interpreted as “destabilization of the institutions of the Romanian state”. The spokesperson said that this destabilization of the state was the very purpose of the journalistic documentary. Even in the report to the CSAT, where they supposedly worked for months, the MAI could not attribute an intention to destabilize, followed by actions to fulfill it, as the representatives of the Romanian state are doing now.
“In the material published today, only partial information was taken to help the goal pursued by publishing this material, namely the destabilization of the institutions of the Romanian state,” said Georgian Drăgan.
The terms used and the conclusions are apocalyptic. “Information regarding the Romanian Police is presented truncated, inaccurate and altered, especially to leave the false impression of major irregularities in the Public Order and National Security System. This modus operandi exceeds the legal framework from our point of view, regarding the free information of citizens. It is likely to affect the activity of institutions in Romania and implicitly ensuring the security of citizens is affected”, added the MAI official.
The MAI stated that we are facing a serial operation. Just as justice was under attack in “Captured Justice” so is the police under attack now. The press conference of the MAI officer can be watched here.
Bode and the insolvency of the PNL
Lucian Bode, the former interior minister, reacted the same way. He began by saying that he did not have a reply on the same day because “yesterday was a special day with triple significance for me and for many Romanians, Heroes' Day, Saints Constantine and Elena and the Ascension of the Lord”. He then said he was outraged that “I had a conversation for 16 minutes and 47 seconds, and my opinion was presented in the video material for about 2 minutes, cut out, strictly for the purpose of this journalistic material.”
The press is not in the business of transcribing politicians' speeches. The full transcript, which Bode is used to, is done by party and state television.
Those televisions to which he gave so much money when he was secretary-general of the PNL that today the liberal party is the only one with a higher debt ratio than Romania.
