At his first summer press conference, Chancellor Olaf Scholz was taciturn and confident of victory when it came to his role in the Cum-Ex affair. He won’t get off that easily at the next meeting of the committee of inquiry. It will be about six central questions about almost 50 million euros in burned tax money.
At his summer press conference, Chancellor Scholz answered questions about the energy crisis, tax breaks and the war. Only towards the end did he have to talk about what was probably the most explosive topic about himself: his role in the cum-ex scandal surrounding the Warburg Bank. The chancellor was both taciturn and confident of victory.
His key statement: “There is no evidence that there was any political influence. “
In a week he will have to face the investigative committee in Hamburg again. Then the questions will presumably be more precise than yesterday from the capital’s journalists.
The six most important questions in this affair, in which the Hamburg taxpayer missed out on 47 million euros from an additional tax payment that was actually due from the Warburg Bank, still remain unanswered:
Question 1: Why did Scholz initially deny any meetings with Warburg co-owner Christian Olearius in the crucial years 2016 and 2017, then, after a corresponding entry was found in Olearius’ diary, admitted to having met him once? When asked, he claimed to have forgotten this meeting.
Why did Scholz only admit to two other meetings with Olearius when these also appeared in the banker’s diary? Scholz also claimed this time that he could not remember the meetings and only admitted to the two meetings afterwards, pointing out that his employees had only now thoroughly checked his calendar again. Has Scholz really forgotten these meetings?
Question 2: What were the occasion and result of these meetings? Why, according to his own statement, can Scholz not remember the content of the conversations and attaches very little importance to them?
The confiscation of Olaf Scholz’s e-mail traffic by the Cologne public prosecutor’s office may provide the first clues here.
Question 3: How can it be that the confiscated e-mails are noticeably missing, as the public prosecutor complains? Was evidence deliberately removed here? Who has the authority to delete the correspondence of the Hamburg financial administration and the first mayor and where did the e-mails end up?
Question 4: If there was no political influence, as Scholz claims, who in the Hamburg tax authorities was then allowed to decide, and on what grounds, that the tax refund to the Warburg Bank was deliberately waived?
Question 5: Why do WhatsApp chat histories tell a Hamburg tax officer about a “diabolical plan” between her and her superiors? Her senior manager at the time was the former finance senator Peter Tschentscher. Was there any political influence? Tschentscher has now succeeded Olaf Scholz as the first mayor of the Free and Hanseatic City.
Question 6: What is the connection between the contacts between the former SPD string puller Kahrs (in whom 214,800 euros and 2400 US dollars were found in cash in a safe deposit box) and Warburg and Scholz? According to Olearius’ diary entries, Kahrs is supposed to be the contact between the Crafted First Mayor and the Banker. Was the money a reward for that?
In the summer press conference, Scholz’s answers to Kahrs were sparse. What he knew about the money in Johannes Kahrs’ locker: “Nothing”
According to Scholz, there was no contact. The last conversation was “ages ago”.
Scholz has to disclose his relationship with Kahrs. Kahrs himself must also be questioned.
Conclusion: The processing of this affair, in which hardly any journalist was seriously interested in the federal election campaign, has only just begun. Olaf Scholz, who plays politics like a chess game, hasn’t even moved yet. His pawns are pushed back and forth. The king remains rigid and silent in cover.
For how much longer?
