Péter Magyar accuses Fidesz of using unlawfully obtained, manipulated recordings to launch smear campaign against him

The scandal taking shape in recent days in Hungary has been compared by Péter Magyar, the leader of the country’s strongest opposition party to Watergate, although for now it is more akin to scenes one might find in a soap opera.

On Monday morning, several media outlets received a recording via an encrypted email service with the subject line “the truth comes to light”. According to the email, the recording was made by Magyar’s ex-girlfriend, Evelin Vogel after the Heroes’ Square protest on 8 June, 2024.

In the roughly 90-second recording, the leader of the Tisza Party complains to his girlfriend about the heat, about people coming too close to him, (“They tore me to pieces, and I kept thinking: “what the fuck am I doing here”?) and adds that “they stink, and their breath stinks”.

Magyar and the party responded with a statement, in which they said: "Péter Magyar, the chairman of the Tisza Party, has known for days that the governing party and Rogán's propaganda machinery would use illegally obtained and manipulated recordings to discredit him. They are doing this because this is the first time that an opposition party has a real chance of ousting this mafia government." (According to several recent surveys, the Tisza Party has caught up with Fidesz in popularity, with the most recent one, conducted by Medián showing that Tisza has overtaken Fidesz both among the overall population and among certain voters.)

They also added that “The recording is clearly edited and manipulated. One of the sentences in the recording has definitely never been uttered by Péter Magyar", but they did not specify which sentence this is and so far, Magyar has not substantiated his claim that he has been wiretapped with secret service methods. On Wednesday morning in a Facebook post, Magyar only stated that they have found “something interesting at the offices of the Tisza Party and it is currently being examined by experts”.

The day before, on Sunday, Magyar held an extraordinary press conference, in which he announced that he believes that a smear campaign supported by AI is about to be launched against him. He claimed that unlawful methods are being used to wiretap him, and that “Antal Rogán and his people” spent more than 2 million euros on an AI-based software which, after all his speeches and public statements have been fed to it, is used to produce recordings with the goal of discrediting him and the Tisza Party.

He claims that the goal of these operations is to divert attention from the situation Hungary is in. “Those in authority want to silence us, but you cannot silence millions of people”, he said.

At his extraordinary press conference on Sunday, Péter Magyar also claimed that Gábor Kubatov, the party director of Fidesz has been paying his ex-wife Judit Varga and his ex-girlfriend Evelin Vogel through György Vertán and his IT company, Tigra Ltd. Vertán confirmed on Monday that Evelin Vogel is indeed living in his apartment downtown, but said he is not giving her any money.

In his response to Telex’s questions, Vertán confirmed that Judit Varga has indeed been working for his IT company since September, and that she is responsible for mapping and organising the company's access to foreign markets, for which she receives a salary. Varga, who was Hungary’s justice minister until July 2023, resigned her mandate as an MP and stepped back from leading Fidesz’ EP list in the wake of the clemency scandal, as she was the one who (while still serving as Minister of Justice) had countersigned the presidential pardon granted by then-president Katalin Novák to the former deputy director of a children’s home, who had blackmailed children sexually abused by the institution’s director to withdraw their testimonies.

A second, longer recording was sent to several media outlets from the same encrypted email service on Tuesday. This one is an hour and forty-three minutes long, and it includes details about Magyar and Vogel’s relationship, as well as descriptions of the early days of the Tisza Party. Evelin Vogel goes into detail about how much she helped Magyar during that time without any payment, and when asked how much she believes she is owed, she says 30 million forints (73 thousand euros), while making it clear that she doesn’t wish to inconvenience the party.

Péter Magyar, whose political career started after he released a secretly made recording of a conversation between him and his then-wife Judit Varga alleging high-level involvement in a corruption case, has filed a complaint against Vogel for attempted extortion, and she was expelled from the Tisza Party.