Why Would PSD Need an Intelligence Service Like "Doi și-un sfert"?
A sociological analysis.
Let’s see if someone sharp in the audience can answer the following question: why would PSD need an intelligence service like Doi și-un sfert (which operates under the Ministry of Internal Affairs, led by Cătălin Predoiu), among other things, in order to obtain favorable rulings in court cases involving high-level corruption and prominent PSD members from Ciolacu and Grindeanu’s party?
Well, let’s say a major corruption case involving a top PSD figure reaches a judge who is stubborn, unbribable, and committed to integrity. In this situation, PSD would need the military psychologists from Doi și-un sfert to break the judge’s mental code and bring him into submission — making him accept the ruling dictated by PSD through this agency, rather than the one dictated by the law. And in order to crush a judge’s (or anyone’s) mind, you need people who deeply understand psychology and who also have access to secret information about that judge: what he eats, how much and how he sleeps, what treatments he is undergoing, his acquired or congenital mental vulnerabilities, who his closest friends are and how to reach them, what weaknesses he has (sexual, financial, technological, travel-related, etc.), his full medical history, childhood data (where most psychological vulnerabilities of an adult can be traced), and more.
Once an officer from Doi și-un sfert has this data, he can move to phase two: to make the judge an offer he can’t refuse, one that has a 99% or 100% chance of success. For example, let’s say the officers know that the judge’s mother is gravely ill, but that her condition can be successfully treated abroad — provided the necessary budget. Then PSD, through that intelligence officer, presents the judge with the opportunity to save his mother with taxpayer money — any amount — obtained through PSD corruption and funneled into the judge’s account by Romanian secret agents using offshore accounts filled by a PSD oligarch. Let’s be honest: the chance to save your mother is extremely tempting for anyone, and most people would do anything to save her.
Psychologically speaking, every person has a price — an amount at which their brain goes click! and they switch into obedience, regardless of how vile or reprehensible the task. Therefore, the task of a service like Doi și-un sfert in relation to that judge is to correctly determine the exact price at which his mind clicks — so that PSD can get a favorable outcome for the criminal defendant from PSD.
Or suppose the judge has a child he deeply loves. In that case, through threats, control over the judge’s mind can be easily obtained by a service like Doi și-un sfert.
Alternatively, the service might plant microphones and cameras in the judge’s home to gather blackmail material for later use.
These are just a few examples to help you understand why a parliamentary mafia like PSD would need to control a corrupt, unreformed intelligence service like Doi și-un sfert — in order to directly influence a judge’s decision in a criminal case involving a prominent PSD figure. But there are many other situations where an organized crime group like PSD would benefit from such a service: to blackmail and intimidate political opponents, election rivals, critical journalists, or other individuals whose obedience is needed for the Ciolacu-Grindeanu mafia to prosper and spread like a cancer in the Romanian state.
To achieve all this, PSD needs not only control over the judiciary — through people like Lia Savonea at the High Court of Cassation and Justice (ICCJ), and others at the General Prosecutor’s Office, DIICOT, and DNA — but also control over at least one secret service like Doi și-un sfert, the General Directorate for Internal Protection within the Ministry of Internal Affairs, currently overseen by USL-era politician Cătălin Predoiu, who looks like a typical slippery PSD operative.
This is why it’s absolutely crucial for Romania that secret services are no longer politically controlled or infiltrated by insiders (securiști), but are brought under civilian oversight — i.e. under the control of a representative of the Romanian people, of us. That strategy would ensure these services work exclusively in the interest of the Romanian people and national security — not in the interest of an organized crime group like PSD or the criminal half of PNL, nor in the personal interest of a spook with political connections.
All that being said — whenever you see PSD growling in Parliament at Ilie Bolojan or Nicușor Dan, threatening to leave the government — you should understand that they are negotiating with them to retain control over this intelligence service and over the judiciary. It has nothing to do with getting concessions or benefits for the PSD electorate — whom the PSD leadership has clearly never cared about.
