The unofficial announcement and then the official statement about the in rem criminal case regarding the financing of billboards for Nicolae Ciucă’s book represent, implicitly, a declaration of the anticorruption prosecutor’s involvement in the core of the electoral campaign, after the Constitutional Court has set the electoral game. Both in favor of a candidate.
On Tuesday, in the evening, DNA issued a press release informing that this case has been on its docket since September.
The press information circulating in the public space to which it refers was obtained by journalists from sources about the existence of this investigation. When did they appear out of the blue, even though, as officially stated, the case has been with DNA since September?
They emerged in the midst of the Nordis scandal when the entire effort of PSD and Marcel Ciolacu is to shift the focus. The narrative spread everywhere, including by Marcel Ciolacu, of course, is that he traveled on private funds on a private trip, unlike Nicolae Ciucă, who financed the promotion of his book with public funds.
"Mr. Iohannis traveled aimlessly on public funds, on our money. Both mine and yours. Mr. Ciucă put up billboards worth millions of euros to promote his book with public money. Not private funds. There's a big difference here," said Marcel Ciolacu.
And what do you know? Miracle! Information immediately emerges from sources, where else but from DNA, about the financing case of the billboards.
Furthermore, a press release appears, although it represents a flagrant violation of what PICCJ communicates as an immutable rule of communication: no information about ongoing cases.
I received the above response to the question about the status of a case in which the Prosecutor General of Romania himself is accused of abusive investigation.
Either the rule was invented to protect the Prosecutor General, or its violation means that it was imperative for DNA to confirm that the case exists just when Marcel Ciolacu was most eager to divert attention from his own scandal.
It's interesting that the one dissatisfied with this announcement is none other than the Minister of Justice, a big fan of DNA chief Marius Voineag.
So the case has been there since September. A case about a very serious matter that concerns the current presidential campaign and one of the candidates, who is also the second most important person in the state. What has DNA done with this investigation since then, which was crucial to see if it has any substance? Nothing, from my information. Absolutely nothing.
Furthermore, from my information, the case initially reached a prosecutor who tried to obtain some information from AEP, at which point the package would have been sent to the Court of Appeal Prosecutor's Office.
Let's remember the episode of Ciucă's plagiarism case at PICCJ. After Mr. Voineag opened the case for an offense prescribed 14 years ago, the prosecutor directly subordinated and elected by him took all official documents, locked them up at the Prosecutor's Office so that no academic investigation would be possible. The documents were unblocked and the case was closed only after the Constitutional Court definitively closed the plagiarism issue.
Following this legal mastery, Mr. Voineag was appointed head of DNA precisely at the proposal of a liberal minister and with the signature of Klaus Iohannis.
Indeed, there were very few of us who spoke about the connection between Mr. Voineag and Ciucă's case at that time. We published documents. The interest was minimal. Even journalists who are apoplectic about ethics and quick to lecture the entire profession turned their heads and validated Mr. Voineag.
Principally, someone willing to sell out once will be willing to do it a second time. Anyone willing to play games in one direction will surely be willing to do so in the opposite direction, depending on the winds of Power.
Therefore, it is not only moral but also pragmatic to place people above any suspicions in key positions.