Did the U.S. directly interfere in the Hungarian elections in 2022 according to a CIA officer? No, there's no evidence: the claim was made by a former CIA analyst but there is no evidence proving that the U.S. interfered in the Hungarian elections.
The claim appeared in a TikTok video (archived here) published by Daniel Deak on September 11, 2023, under the title "They admitted it openly: The Americans interfered in the Hungarian elections!" It opened:
The American left wing interfered in the Hungarian elections in 2022, this is what a CIA officer talked about recently.
(Translated from Hungarian by Lead Stories staff)
The claim was made by Larry C. Johnson, a former CIA analyst, on the Judge Napolitano - Judging Freedom online talk show.
In the United States we got all outraged in 2006 over alleged Russian interference in our election, but by God we were directly interfering in the Hungarian election that brought Orban to power two years ago - or reelected him, anyway.
Companies and NGOs connected to the Hungarian opposition and especially to Peter Marki-Zay, the opposition's PM candidate in 2022, received 4 billion HUF (11 590 000 USD) from an American and a Swiss NGO before the elections in April 2022. According to Peter Marki-Zay, the funds were used by his NGO, Mindenki Magyarországa Mozgalom, to support his campaign. According to David Koranyi, the founder of Action for Democracy, the US NGO, they supported organizations fighting for democracy and media pluralism.
There is no evidence of any link between the U.S. Government or the State Department and Action for Democracy. There is also no evidence proving that Action for Democracy received US tax dollars.
Despite receiving the funds, Peter Marki-Zay lost the election, and neither he, his party, nor his NGO are represented in the Hungarian parliament. Furthermore, accepting donations from abroad as a party is illegal in Hungary, and there is no evidence that any of the parties represented in the Parliament received funds from abroad.
The National Information Center, Hungary's intelligence agency, published a briefing and later a more extended report on the foreign campaign funding case that they are investigating. The documents say that people connected to the Democratic Party are behind Action for Democracy, but they do not show any convincing evidence. The report does not mention that the NGO received money from the State Department.
The Hungarian government has incorporated foreign funding into its communication strategy since September-October 2022. Their typical narrative suggests that the funds originated from George Soros, a claim that has been found to be misleading and debunked by Lead Stories.
