Elissa Slotkin went to Hungary to learn how to jail her opponents

BUDAPEST — Hungary under Prime Minister Péter Magyar has become such a blueprint for leftists’ schemes to persecute and jail opponents the minute they get power that Michigan Sen. Elissa Slotkin, the leading U.S. proponent of such Gestapo tactics, just got caught on hidden camera admitting she recently came here to take notes.I came to Budapest for the launch of the book I co-authored with Katharine Gorka, NextGen Marxism. Its fourth translation in Europe, and the stubborn interest in it betrays apprehension about the resurgence of Marxism in the West. While here, I spoke to old friends who expressed consternation about Magyar’s scorched-earth campaign.To a man, they warned me that what happens here will happen in the United States because the Left here is as blinded with hate about the man Magyar defeated, Viktor Orbán, as U.S. liberals are about President Donald Trump. “This is the base of Magyar’s party seeking revenge,” writer Gergely Szilvay told me. “They want blood. They want to see as many Fidesz politicians as possible thrown into prison,” he added, referring to Orbán’s party.News then broke on Townhall late Friday that Slotkin was again caught on hidden cam. Someone secretly filming her asked her on Thursday while she campaigned for an ally in Michigan, “What are we going to do to hold the Trump regime and its collaborators responsible? I’m talking prosecutions.”“I’m with you,” Slotkin gushed immediately. “So basically, assuming we win both houses, even if we just win one, we’ll come up — we have a list of, like, the ‘signature cases.’”Slotkin then added enthusiastically here. “I just went to Hungary. I went over to Budapest in Hungary because they just got rid of their authoritarian leader after 16 years. And I’m like, how did you handle 16 years of corruption? We don’t have that much, but we have so much,” she said.What Magyar did, she said she was told, was “this ‘signature cases’ (strategy).”One of the first steps Magyar’s party, Tizsa, took was to amend Hungary’s constitution, the Fundamental Law, to ensure that Orbán can never return to office. The amendment limits anyone to two four-year terms as prime minister, retroactive to the return of democracy on May 2, 1990. Tisza could amend the constitution by itself because it won a two-thirds majority in parliament in elections in April.The law is clearly aimed at one person, Orbán, as it ensures that he can never return as prime minister, an office he has held for 20 years (1998-2002, 2016-2026). In fact, wags here call it “Lex Orbán.”Magyar then went after the country’s president, Tamás Sulyok, setting aside constitutional niceties to make sure he could bag him. He ousted Sulyok, an Orbán appointee, by again using the two-thirds parliamentary majority to ram through parliament a one-sentence amendment to Hungary’s constitution, the Fundamental Law.The maneuver, unprecedented since Hungary became a democracy after decades of communist tyranny, ended Sulyok’s presidency on flimsy grounds: “serious loss of confidence.” Sulyok had to haplessly sign the amendment or face impeachment, while complaining bitterly about how it violated the rule of law and democratic practices — which it did.The amendment, said Sulyok, was a “breaking point in Hungarian constitutional democracy.” The “core values of a free society… have been trampled underfoot for the sake of political power,” he added.But Magyar hasn’t stopped at the prime minister and the president. He is now going after the small fish. My friend Zoltán Koskovics of the Center for Fundamental Rights, which published our book in Hungarian, sent me a long list of Fidesz officials, minor politicians, and businessmen who are now being thrown in prison.Szilvay wrote in his popular Substack in September that one of the Magyar government’s preferred vehicles for targeting enemies is the newly created National Asset Recovery and Asset Protection Office (NVVH in the Hungarian acronym), whose goal ostensibly is to root out corruption retroactive to 20 years.This is the usual defense by the practitioners of lawfare here and in the U.S.: We are only going after instances of corruption (or sexual transgressions, or malfeasance in office, or spending state funds on political campaigns, take your pick).The NVVH, wrote Szilvay, “has the power to launch investigations with unsubstantiated suspicions of the perpetration of a crime. If the NVVH considers that someone has availed themselves of state assets, then a wiretap can be set. It has unrestricted access to tax and business secrets and has been granted the authority to access company premises.”Government contractors, Szilvay told me, are particularly at risk, no matter how small they are. “Somewhat alarmingly, the NVVH has been given the right to compel anyone to provide information about others — startlingly, this new office has been bestowed with the right to force citizens to inform on others.”At particular risk are micro enterprises that had government contracts. “A peculiar feature of the traditional Hungarian taxation system led to the expansion of micro enterprises which were easier and cheaper to employ than individuals,” Szilvay writes.One dimension to all this is that Magyar seems to be acting on orders from the European Union, which is scary considering what Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk did by attacking the Constitutional Court Friday night while the president was overseas.“Magyar is carrying out orders from Brussels,” Koskovics told me. Szilvay got more specific: “He gets Brussels directives every Friday. That’s why the government announces its agenda on the weekend.”This lawfare, or using the threats of prosecution to go after political opponents, isn’t new. All these things were tried against Donald Trump during his four years in the political wilderness between terms.In France, Marine Le Pen, the leader of the nationalist-populist Rassemblement National party, may have to wear an ankle monitor while she campaigns for president next year. She is appealing a guilty verdict against her and other RN figures for allegedly diverting European Parliament funds intended for E Parliament RN assistants to the national party.And in Brazil, Marxist President Inacio Lula da Silva won an election last week that no one expected under very shady circumstances. Seven minutes after the results came in, a pro-Lula Supreme Court Judge, Alexandre de Moraes, issued an order to seize the passport of Lula’s opponent, Flávio Bolsonaro. Bolsonaro was still able to escape, with the help of Argentina and the U.S., using his Italian passport. He is now in the U.S.The examples around the world are multiplying, as lawfare is now seen as an almost acceptable part of politics, rather than the unseemly retribution and revenge-taking that should be shunned by sophisticated societies.Slotkin’s scary gaffe while speaking at the University of Chicago in October has been lambasted by Republicans, but she seems to have suffered no setback among her supporters. What’s bizarre is that Slotkin is a former CIA spook, and one thing they are supposed to be good at is keeping secrets. Not Slotkin, apparently.CONSERVATIVE FIRM BATTLES DEFAMATION LAWSUIT FROM ARMY OFFICIAL WHO ALLEGEDLY EXCUSED CHARLIE KIRK’S MURDERShe’s not alone. Kara Swisher, a podcaster with a large online following on the Left, recently said that the government should go after “Big Balls,” software engineer Edward Coristine, a 20-year-old who briefly worked for Musk’s DOGE.Magyar’s “signature cases” start with big names, then they’ll be rounding up the 20-year-olds. And Slotkin can’t wait to follow suit here.