WASHINGTON (AP) — A senior Hungarian government official close to Prime Minister Viktor Orbán was hit with U.S. sanctions on Tuesday for his alleged involvement in corruption in Hungary.
Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control sanctioned Antal Rogán for corruption while in office.
Rogán, the minister in charge of Orbán’s cabinet office, is a key figure in Orbán’s government and oversees the engineering of wide-reaching government communication campaigns that are credited with being instrumental in maintaining Orbán’s power since 2010.
Known among critics in Hungary as the “propaganda minister,” Rogán rarely appears in public or gives interviews, but is a veteran advisor to Orbán and also oversees Hungary’s secret services.
He is accused of using his public office to broker favorable business deals with government-aligned businesspeople, a key part of European Union penalties against Hungary that have withheld billions in funding over official corruption concerns.
In recent months, a new political challenger to Orbán, Péter Magyar, has taken direct aim at Rogán and accused him of facilitating corruption, launching smear campaigns against opponents and initiating surveillance activities against himself and others.
In March, Magyar released an audio recording that he says proved that top officials, including Rogán, conspired to cover up corruption. The recording purports to show that Rogán led an effort to alter evidence.
The Treasury’s Acting Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence Bradley T. Smith said the U.S. “will not hesitate to hold accountable individuals, like Rogán, who use the power of their office to illicitly enrich themselves and their cronies at the expense of their country and their fellow citizens.”
The authority used to designate Rogán is a Trump-era executive order that implements the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act, which targets human rights abusers and corruption around the world.
The sanctions brought by the outgoing Biden administration reflect U.S. efforts in the last four years to address concerns in Washington that Orbán has led Hungary, a member of the EU and a NATO member, to abandon democratic principles while pursuing closer ties with Russia and China.
Orbán, who backs Donald Trump, has expressed certainty that U.S.-Hungarian relations would improve once the president-elect takes office. Orbán made three visits to Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence in 2024, while Trump has spoken positively about him.
U.S. Ambassador to Hungary, David Pressman, has been the subject of intense criticism by Orbán’s government, which accuses him of attempting to interfere in Hungary’s internal affairs.
The Treasury Department in 2023 placed sanctions on the International Investment Bank, which relocated its headquarters to Hungary’s capital from Moscow in 2019, arguing it served as a conduit for Russian espionage within the EU and NATO.
Hungary soon after withdrew its stakes in the bank.
Justin Spike And Fatima Hussein, The Associated Press
