The United States has imposed sanctions against Viktor Orban, a close aide of Hungary

His departure comes just days before Donald Trump’s return to the White House, and President-elect Viktor Orbán is viewed more favorably than the Biden administration, seeing him as a close political ally.

“While Minister Rogan’s media megaphones are trying to make this a story about partisan politics or an affront to sovereignty, today’s decision is the opposite,” Pressman told reporters in Budapest on Tuesday.

“It is not the United States that threatens Hungary’s sovereignty, but Minister Rogan, who helped build and manage the kleptocratic ecosystem, personally benefited.”

The ambassador’s statement was immediately attacked by Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto.

“This is the personal vendetta of the ambassador who was sent to Hungary by the failed US administration, but was unsuccessfully and abandoned in disgrace,” Szijjarto wrote on Facebook.

“It’s good that in a few days the USA will be led by people who see our country not as an enemy, but as a friend.”

Former US Ambassador to Hungary David Kornstein also defended Rogan: “Ambassador David Pressman’s action is an example of the hostile position of the current US administration towards Hungary.”

The question for the incoming Trump presidency and his ambassador to Budapest, Matt Whitaker, is whether they will immediately lift the sanctions against Antal Rogan.

The answer is not as obvious as it seems.

Rogan also oversees the domestic intelligence services, and there are orders from several NATO countries to no longer provide sensitive information to Hungary because of the Orbán government’s close relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

For all the expressions of anger at Orban’s decision to sanction the cabinet chief, several senior figures in the Fidesz establishment have long been disillusioned with Rogan’s and others’ lifestyles, power and distance from the government. the party’s loudly proclaimed conservative and Christian values.