Cum-Ex relationship: Postal letters from Scholz’s office manager were sought

In the Cum-Ex investigation, prosecutors also checked emails from Chancellor Schultz’s office manager. According to the documents that dem NDR and other media Available, they found a “potentially proof” document.

The Cologne Prosecutor’s Office is also targeting a high-ranking employee of the Chancellery in its investigations into the Cum-Ex case against the Hamburg private bank MM Warburg. On April 21 this year, investigators from North Rhine-Westphalia for years confiscated the email box of Janet Schwamberger, director of the office at the Chancellery and a confidant of Chancellor Olaf Schultz for years. This stems from the documents that NDRand “Stern” and “Director Magazine”.

“Suspicious” mail to Schmidt

Searching the mailbox, investigators found an email that Schwamberger wrote in April 2021, which the Cologne prosecutor has classified as suspicious. In connection with an inquiry from the Hamburg Parliamentary Inquiry Committee on Schulz’s appointments on the subject of Cum-Ex and Warburg and with bankers and politicians, the Director of the Office wrote an email containing proposals and sent them to Wolfgang Schmidt, current President of the Federal Chancellery and then Secretary of State in the Federal Ministry of Finance.

The prosecutor’s assessment under the subheading “Subject of data deletion” states: “The following calendar entries and emails are likely to be relevant as evidence, as they suggest data deletion.” The email from Scholz’s chief of staff to Schmidt ranks second on the next list from the attorney general’s office.

In addition to Schwamberger’s mail, the attorney general’s office has classified other messages in email boxes and calendars from a number of Hamburg tax officials, senators and members of the state council as being apparent in a 78-page memo from the end of June this year.

Scholz: not included in calendar query

Schulz – then Federal Minister of Finance – left at the behest of NDR He says he was “neither involved in the calendar query nor in sending extracts from the calendar”. Schmidt and Schamberger would have taken care of that. A government spokeswoman confirmed this NDR: There was no ‘choice’ of calendar dates.

Investigations against Kahrs and Pawelczyk

The confiscation of the Schulz conference e-mail box is linked to the investigations of former SPD member of the Bundestag Johannes Kahrs as well as against former Hamburg Deputy Mayor Alfons Paulczyk and a Hamburg tax officer.

It concerns the transactions of the vice-president of the Hamburg private bank MM Warburg. The three defendants are said to have helped the bank not have to repay the 47 million euros obtained from the criminal file’s transactions.

influence commission

The case also focuses on Schulze and Hamburg Mayor Peter Chencher. Currently incoming investigation committee The question of whether Schulze as mayor and Chencher as his finance senator initially exercised political influence for not claiming millions. Schulze and Chencher both deny this, and there is still no evidence of influence.

In the face of the research, Richard Selmaker, CDU chief at the Hamburg Inquiry Committee on the NDR, said: “This is of course very troubling, because the Prosecutor’s Office does not simply order any sudden confiscation, but then orders the Prosecutor’s office with a concrete suspicion.”

Court: ‘proportionate’ search

The Cologne District Court agreed to search the mailboxes. In its search command, which Panorama NDR-Magazinand Stern and Director of Magazine, the court justified the proceedings by saying that they may also contain emails related to the preparation of Schultz’s testimony at the Parliamentary Inquiry into the Com-X case in Hamburg in April 2021.

This measure is proportionate because of the enormous tax damage. It’s about Schaumberger’s time at the Federal Ministry of Finance. She was Scholz’s office manager there before moving to the Chancellery in the same capacity.