Since the Ibiza affair, the Austrian Corruption Prosecutor has shown a great deal of enthusiasm. In a hardly manageable number of cases, investigations were started, house searches were carried out, devices were confiscated, and that in the meantime with more ÖVP staff than the FPÖ, right up to Chancellor Kurz. Some of the original allegations appeared thin or over-constructed. But Thomas Schmid's cell phone, which was confiscated early and who turned out to be Kurz's former puller in the Ministry of Finance, was productive. Now his chats are available through a tabloid and with pollsters, which hardly allow any other conclusion than that he has misused the finance ministry's advertising budget as a campaign fund for Kurz's fight for the ÖVP chairmanship and the chancellery and also had bills concealed.
The ÖVP presents itself as a victim of a political judiciary. The truth is that the prosecutors were not nearly as eager for similar allegations against social democratic politicians.
Who knows what could have been found there on cell phones.
But that won't help the ÖVP.
The shrill tone with which Kurz's people start their song is tell-tale.
Kurz tried to locate the processes far from his person.
But because it was precisely about him and his “Project Ballhausplatz”, this firewall is brittle.
Schmid's cell phone could prove to be his Ibiza video.