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According to stern research
Missing laptops in the Cum-Ex committee – CSU calls for “special investigators”
CSU General Secretary Martin Huber: “A historic scandal that cannot remain without consequences”
© Peter Kneffel / DPA
In the Cum-Ex Investigative Committee are after star-During research, two laptops with 700,000 emails were stolen from a safe. The Union takes on Olaf Scholz – and demands consequences.
After new revelations in the Cum-Ex affair involving the Hamburg SPD and its then First Mayor Olaf Scholz, the CSU is calling for the deployment of an independent special investigator. “Investigators should find the truth instead of covering it up and letting evidence disappear,” said CSU General Secretary Martin Huber star. “The appearance of the SPD chief investigator is a historic scandal that cannot remain without consequences.”
Background is one star-Research according to which two laptops with more than 700,000 emails were stolen from a safe in the Hamburg committee of inquiry into the Cum-Ex affair (Read more here). Of all people, the chief investigator Steffen Jänicke, appointed by the SPD, is said to have removed and hidden the sensitive evidence from the safe in the investigative committee’s security room. The missing emails also include mailboxes of Olaf Scholz’s office manager Jeanette Schwamberger, Hamburg’s First Mayor Peter Tschentscher and other top officials.
“What does the SPD want to hide about Cum-Ex? How deeply is Chancellor Scholz involved in tax fraud?” asks the CSU General Secretary indignantly. Huber demands: “We need a real, independent special investigator who will shed light on the matter.”
“Olaf Scholz and the Hamburg SPD demonstrate the rule of law”
Drastic words also come from other Union politicians. “Olaf Scholz and the Hamburg SPD demonstrate the rule of law,” wrote Junge Union boss Johannes Winkel on the short message service X, formerly Twitter. “It can’t be serious that a democracy allows itself to use such methods?” The former CDU general secretary Ruprecht Polenz speaks of a “real scandal”, also via X. “Law and law apparently only apply to others,” wrote CDU MP Gitta Connemann there. “Banana Republic of Hamburg. A chancellor of stature would now push for complete clarification,” says the federal chairwoman of the powerful SME and Economic Union (MIT).
The MPs on the investigative committee hope that the missing evidence will provide new insights into the role of Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) in the cum-ex affair of the Hamburg private bank MM Warburg. After months of tug-of-war, the Ministry of Justice in North Rhine-Westphalia sent the laptops with the emails that were seized as part of the Cum-Ex investigation to Hamburg at the beginning of October.
“We don’t know where the devices are and whether they are safe at that location,” criticizes Richard Seelmaecker, CDU chairman of the Hamburg investigative committee. According to research by star and “WAZ”, Jänicke removed the laptops from the safe in the committee’s strictly secured file room. It is unclear where Jänicke took the laptops.
The question is whether he violated the committee’s rules for maintaining secrecy, which state: “The files and other documents must be kept in file and reading rooms in the respective building to be determined by the working staff.” It is also unclear why he removed the laptops from the safe – only selected members of the team have access to it anyway. “We are extremely astonished at this handling of sensitive data,” says Left Party chairman Norbert Hackbusch.
When asked, committee chairman Mathias Petersen (SPD) assured that the laptops would be kept “in the working staff in compliance with secrecy regulations”. Jänicke did not comment when asked.