Republicans rail against Trump’s willingness to help 'achieve Orbán’s pro-Russian aims': report

01 September 2024

When GOP policy experts, strategists and national security officials attended a "peace in Ukraine" event co-sponsored by the Conservative Partnership Institute in October 2022, "they were given pamphlets pushing unabashedly pro-Russia talking points," according to Politico.

In a Sunday article published by the news outlet, Heidi Przybyla and Nicholas Vinocur report that former President George W. Bush Defense and State Department adviser Kristofer Harrison said that the pamphlets demonstrate how "corrupt authoritarians are accessing and abusing our system to undermine U.S. national security."

Ian Brzezinski, who served as Bush's former deputy assistant secretary of defense for Europe and NATO policy, commented that the pamphlet "looks like it was written by the Kremlin."

The event featured Hungarian Minister of Foreign Affairs Peter Szijjarto, who Politico notes Russian President Vladimir Putin awarded "an Order of Friendship medal, the highest Russian state decoration that can be given to a foreigner," just months prior.

Politico reports:

The discussion, which CPI held in partnership with another conservative nonprofit called the Counterpoint Institute, was an early part of what’s become a far broader initiative by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán to expand his influence around the world. It has included his repeated overtures to former President Donald Trump, who praised Orbán in his acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention in late July.

The Hungarian message is of concern to mainstream Republican foreign-policy officials, past and present, because it seems to be a vehicle for an ongoing influence campaign over Trump and the many groups that are seeking his favor as he battles with Vice President Kamala Harris this fall to regain the American presidency. While Trump, during his time in the White House from 2017-2021, often expressed his personal respect for Putin, the war in Ukraine has made an open relationship between the two diplomatically untenable. Orbán, according to the former GOP officials, is stepping into the void. He has visited Trump in Florida twice this year.

Brzezinski noted that Orbán is just "one 'tool' of a broader Russian influence campaign that’s reached deep into Washington’s corridors of power," pointing to "recent comments from the House Intelligence and Foreign Relations Committee chairs, both Republicans, that Russian propaganda has influenced" the party.

Politico also notes that "CPI itself is a major arm of Trump’s MAGA movement raising significant sums of money," and is supported by several Trump allies, including former chief of staff Mark Meadows, and Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts, "who calls Orbán’s leadership a 'model for conservative governance,'" and "has openly lobbied for influence in a future Trump administration through its Project 2025 and played a lead role in lobbying Congress to end congressional funding to Ukraine."

One source familiar with the matter told the news outlet, "'They [Orbán allies] say things people want to hear about issues they care about. It’s 'woke this and woke that,' and then they pressure them with what they really want,' which is to end the Ukraine war on Putin’s terms."

Politico notes that the source "is among many members of the more hawkish Republican foreign-policy establishment who said they were concerned about how Orbán is manipulating MAGA themes to achieve Orbán’s pro-Russian aims."

According to Harrison, "the Hungarian government is leveraging its role as a global intermediary for practical reasons more than a commitment to global conservatism."

The ex-Bush official emphasized, "Orbán carries water for Russia because they’re the highest bidder."

Politico's full report is available here.

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