Romanian presidential candidate Calin Georgescu was taken into custody for questioning Wednesday after already having his winning election results annulled, Fox News reported. Many are wondering if this is Vice President J.D. Vance's warning come true about European politics.
Georgescu had won the first round of voting in the since-canceled election in his nation. Now, officials from the Romanian government announced he had been "taken in for questioning at the General Prosecutor’s Office" along with several others.
Romanian authorities raided 47 addresses over alleged campaign finance and weapons violations along with the Orwellian charge of creating an organization "with a fascist, racist or xenophobic" individual. Georgescu said on Facebook that he believes officials were "looking to justify the theft of the elections and to do anything to block my new candidacy for the presidency."
On Dec. 8, Romania's Constitutional Court threw out the election results just two days before a runoff election that would have decided the winner. They thought that Georgescu's upset win was suspect since he said he spent no money on campaigning and polled with just single-digit support.
Current Romanian Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu claimed it happened because "the judiciary is independent & the law must be applied regardless of persons." However, Tesla billionaire Elon Musk has repeatedly expressed skepticism about the process.
"They just arrested the person who won the most votes in the Romanian presidential election. This is messed up," Musk wrote on X, formerly Twitter, on Wednesday.
They just arrested the person who won the most votes in the Romanian presidential election. This is messed up. https://t.co/hXjR4hrBcu
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 26, 2025
Musk also called Judge Marian Enache, the chief of Romania's highest court who sealed the deal for tossing the results of the election Georgescu won, a "tyrant." The Trump administration has also spoken out against the idea that Romania would cancel the results it didn't like.
"Romania straight up canceled the results of a presidential election based on the flimsy suspicions of an intelligence agency and enormous pressure from its continental neighbors. The argument was that Russian disinformation had infected the Romanian elections," Vance said in December.
It seems that Romania is using a familiar playbook taken from the American Democratic Party and the media against Trump. Armed with this perspective, Vance spoke at the Munich Security Conference last week and warned about the "threat from within" for Europe.
"What I worry about is the threat from within – the retreat of Europe from some of its most fundamental values, values shared with the United States of America. Now, I was struck that a former European commissioner went on television recently and sounded delighted that the Romanian government had just annulled an entire election," Vance said.
"He warned that if things don't go to plan, the very same thing could happen in Germany too. Now, these cavalier statements are shocking to American ears," Vance acknowledged.
"For years, we've been told that everything we fund and support is in the name of our shared democratic values. Everything from our Ukraine policy to digital censorship is billed as a defense of democracy. But when we see European courts canceling elections and senior officials threatening to cancel others, we ought to ask whether we're holding ourselves to an appropriately high standard," Vance said.
It is frightening that an election can be canceled on a vague suspicion and the top candidate held for questioning. Vance is right to warn the world of what's coming, but only time will tell if anyone is actually listening.
