1. United States
2. Iowa
3. Letter

I am your constituent, and I am writing because a scandal has surfaced that Congress cannot ignore. A foreign government allied with Vladimir Putin appears to have been funneling state money into CPAC — the single most influential political conference on the American right — and the incoming Prime Minister of that country has publicly called it a crime. On Monday, April 13, 2026, Hungary's incoming Prime Minister Péter Magyar, who defeated Viktor Orbán in a historic landslide the day before, told reporters that Orbán's government had been using Hungarian taxpayer money to finance CPAC. Magyar said the arrangement will be investigated by Hungary's National Office for the Recovery and Protection of Public Assets, and he announced that the funding ends immediately. He said the same about the Mathias Corvinus Collegium — the Orbán-aligned institution where Vice President J.D. Vance delivered a speech just days before the election while campaigning for Orbán. On Election Day itself, CPAC's official account publicly declared it "stood firmly" with Orbán. The day after the election, CPAC chairman Matt Schlapp's response to the funding allegation was not a denial. It was a statement that he was "gratified" Magyar had invited CPAC back. Apply the reverse test. If a foreign government had been caught funding a major left-wing political conference while its leader pledged personal loyalty to Vladimir Putin, every Republican in Congress would — rightly — be demanding hearings by the end of the week. The standard cannot change because the conference is CPAC. The Constitution does not have a partisan exemption. This is not a domestic policy disagreement. This is a question of foreign influence in American politics, of whether the Foreign Agents Registration Act was circumvented, and of whether sitting members of the Trump administration — a Vice President and a Secretary of State who both traveled to Budapest to campaign for Orbán — were coordinating with a government that was simultaneously bankrolling the infrastructure of the American right and doing the bidding of the Kremlin. And this is not abstract. The ideas workshopped at CPAC Hungary — anti-immigrant crackdowns, attacks on LGBTQ+ rights, the "Don't Say Gay" framework — became Florida law under Governor Ron DeSantis, who explicitly modeled his playbook on Orbán's. That same ideology is the spine of Project 2025, the blueprint for the current administration, whose Vice President wrote the foreword to Heritage Foundation president Kevin Roberts's 2024 book describing their shared project as "a fundamentally Christian view of culture and economics." If Magyar is telling the truth, then laws Americans now live under were shaped, in part, at a conference underwritten by a foreign government. It gets worse. Magyar also told reporters that Orbán's outgoing foreign minister, Péter Szijjártó — the same minister whose August 2024 call with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov was published by The Insider — was caught shredding documents related to EU sanctions on his way out the door. Evidence is being destroyed in real time. Congress should publicly demand that the administration support allied efforts to recover those records. Here is what I am asking you to do: 1 Demand an immediate congressional investigation into foreign funding of CPAC, the U.S. operations of the Mathias Corvinus Collegium, and any American individuals, influencers, think tanks, or political organizations that received Hungarian state funds. The House Foreign Affairs Committee, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and both Intelligence Committees have jurisdiction, and the investigation should formally request cooperation with Hungary's incoming anti-corruption inquiry. 2 Call on the Department of Justice to open a FARA inquiry. Any American who received Hungarian government money to promote Hungarian government interests may have potentially triggered FARA registration requirements. The fact that the current DOJ is unlikely to act does not relieve Congress of the duty to demand it on the record. 3 Demand a full, sworn accounting from Vice President Vance and Secretary Rubio of every meeting, communication, and financial relationship they, their staffs, their PACs, and their affiliated organizations have had with the Orbán government, Fidesz, CPAC Hungary, or the Mathias Corvinus Collegium. 4 Sponsor or co-sponsor legislation closing the loopholes that allow foreign governments to fund American political conferences and the organizations that host them, with mandatory disclosure and criminal penalties for noncompliance. You swore an oath to defend this country against all enemies, foreign and domestic. The Prime Minister of Hungary has just told the world that his predecessor was paying to shape American politics. That is a hostile foreign influence operation inside our political system, and it demands a response from the legislative branch regardless of who holds the White House. A foreign government bought influence in our politics. Tell me, on the record, what you plan to do about it. Respectfully, a constituent who expects better.