Ahen the questioning of the chancellor in the Hamburg investigative committee had been going on for a long time and Olaf Scholz kept saying that he didn’t know something or that he couldn’t remember, a CDU MP tried a bold question: whether the chancellor should undergo hypnosis would to jog his memory?
The chancellor was undeterred. He should be able to live quite well with his memory gaps in the cum-ex affair anyway. They protect him from contradictions as well as from unpleasant questions. Nevertheless, Scholz should not believe that the affair will remain without a trace. Because if you don’t have the memory for decisive questions and meetings, you won’t be able to eliminate even the last doubts.
It is true that even after the long work of the investigative committee in Hamburg, there is no concrete evidence that politics had any influence on the tax exemption of the Hamburg Warburg-Bank in 2016.
Scholz and his then Senator for Finance, Peter Tschentscher, have denied any influence, and so far nothing has been able to conclusively refute their statement. There were also no complaints of political influence in the committee from witnesses dealing with the matter in the tax administration and the authorities. So the line of defense holds.
Still, not everything is just fine. Oddities remain in the affair. From Hamburg SPD party friends, against whom the public prosecutor’s office is already investigating, to Scholz’s meetings with representatives of the bank management, which the then mayor does not remember. Although there were bankers sitting in front of him who feared for the existence of their house. That sounds amazing.
In the end, Scholz will hardly be dangerous in this affair himself. But the discussion remains as to how credible such gaps in memory are. And once the credibility is in question, it becomes dangerous.
