The News You Need on Tuesday, May 19, 2026.
Orbán and co leave 20 bags of shredded documents for Hungary's new PM, Trump's witless concessions on Taiwan and two-pronged approach to take Greenland's sovereignty. Elon loses to OpenAI in court.
Burn Bag
Der Spiegel
Scott: In Budapest, Viktor Orbán is out and Péter Magyar and his team are in. What did they find on arrival? Bags and bags of shredded documents.
They mostly seem to relate to dealing with Russian president Vladimir Putin, the Kremlin, and very elaborate efforts, evidently coordinated closely with the Kremlin, to fund right-wing “populist” politicians, political parties and social media figures in nations all across the developed world (but the United States is prominent).
Maybe now we’ll learn the details on how Orbán used the Danube Foundation to fund the Heritage Foundation, which set up Project 2025.
Inquiring minds want to know.
Employees of new Hungarian Prime Minister Péter Magyar have apparently discovered suspicious material in the basement of the former Ministry of Construction. According to Magyar, these are 15 to 20 bags of shredded documents and campaign materials from former Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s Fidesz party. The material therefore fuels suspicion of embezzlement of state funds.
On Sunday, Magyar published a video about it on Facebook. You can see bags with scraps of paper as well as leaflets and signs with the slogan “Fidesz, the safe choice”. Advertising material is also said to be attributed to the former minister János Lázár, who once headed the department. The party flyers in particular are intended to raise questions about the use of state funds by the former government.
Magyar spoke of suspicion of several crimes—including illegal party financing and misuse of state resources for political purposes. The state audit office should have examined such events, he said, and now the police must also investigate. The new Prime Minister announced legal action. His government will file a formal complaint and inform about further steps as soon as interviews or investigative measures begin.
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Fighting for Justice In Minnesota
The Washington Post
Charles: In Minnesota’s Hennepin County, County Attorney Mary Moriarty announced the indictment of ICE Agent Christian Castro on multiple second-degree felony assault charges and one count of falsely reporting a crime, a misdemeanor.
Castro is accused of shooting Julio Sosa-Celis in the leg after shooting into a house where the victim was sheltering with children.
County Attorney Mary Moriarty
Castro is the second Ice Agent to be indicted in Hennepin County. Gregory Donnell Morgan Jr. was charged in April with two counts of second-degree assault after he allegedly pointed a gun at a vehicle on Feb. 5 while driving on a local highway.
If the defendants claim immunity because they were acting as part of their official duties, a Federal Judge will decide whether their cases can go forward in state courts. An ICE spokesperson called the Minnesota prosecutors’ actions “unlawful and nothing more than a political stunt.”
Sosa-Celis was one of three people shot by federal agents during Operation Metro Surge, a DHS crackdown that deployed federal officers to Minneapolis to help carry out the Trump administration’s mass deportation campaign. Agents killed U.S. citizens Alex Pretti and Renée Good, sparking condemnation and questions by Democrats and some Republican leaders.
So far a lack of cooperation from the Feds has prevented state prosecutors from bringing any charges in the cases of Pretti and Good.
