The Von der Leyen 'Scandal'

From December 2013 to July of 2019, Ursula von der Leyen was the Defense Minister of Germany (CDU Party).  In the July 2019 time-frame, because of the EU President's position being open....various efforts were made to open the door and allow her to move up that position.  Today, she's the most known person of the EU structure. 

For the past three years, there's been this scandal brewing in Germany over an odd defense topic....contractor support.  The opposition parties (mostly the Greens and Linke folks) have developed questions, and suggest that a crisis has developed.

The contractor support?  There is no suggestion with evidence to say that it only started in this 2013 to 2019 period.  The German military has probably had some type of contractor support for well over twenty years.  What the suggested problem is that under Von der Leyen, the number of contractors escalated.

A necessity?  Well, you can look at the US military and the necessity of bringing on contractors really starting in the 1990s, with the arrival of a lot of technical equipment, and a constant need for qualified people to repair or operate the equipment.  The Germans simply arrived at the same point....having a vast amount of technology in defensive weapons, and needing qualified people to ensure operations.

The opposition parties believe that there is some type of quid pro quo going on....they want evidence.  So we come to the cellphone of Defense Minister Von der Leyen as she left her minister job.

In recent days, they felt they'd finally get to the 'truth' of phone chats, and they'd get to this phone handed over by Von der Leyen.  Well....here's the shocker....all data on that phone was deleted shortly after the phone was given back to the government.

Yep, shocker.

Was there a subpoena handed over at the time of the phone being given back to the Defense Ministry?  No.  This only came up recently.   This in some way....is a problem for the opposition parties.

So the accusation?  A violation of section 274 of the German criminal code (getting you potentially up to five years in prison and a fine).  The section 274?  It's about the suppression of documents or evidence.

More of a public relations event than an actual legal threat?  Well, they will go through the motions and try to make the Merkel coalition react to the threat.  Maybe some judges will wish to jump into the scandal themselves.  But then you'd have to prove that some subpoena existed at the time of Von der Leyen leaving, or that this was not accidental.

And what would the phone really give you?  Well...that's a minor discussion point.  Phone records already exist.  So they might be thinking that she saved emails to the phone or text messages.  If she saved e-mails, they'd still be on a server and they could reach that server (with a bit of effort), without requiring the stupid phone.  Text messages would be the only real potential item here.

So a non-scandal?  I would go and almost suggest that it's mostly just political intrigue without much substance.