Sorin Grindeanu: My trip to USA - paid with PSD money

Social Democratic Party (PSD) MP Sorin Grindeanu said on Monday that his trip to the United States, when he was prime minister, along with Liviu Dragnea, was paid for by the PSD, agerpres reports.

He claimed that he did not know information about the new case against the former PSD leader Liviu Dragnea regarding the trip to the USA.

"I don't know anything at all, I have not seen the news. If the case was sent to court, it means that the defendants were informed. (...) I don't comment. I was together [with Dragnea] in the United States then. I have been twice heard as a witness in this case. I know that the party paid for my trip, the plane and the accommodation and everything else," Grindeanu said at Parliament.

The PSD deputy added that he refused to go to the USA on the Government's money.

"Although I had then the official quality of prime minister, all the travel expenses were not paid by the Government, I refused that. They were paid by the PSD, whose member I was. ( ...) I cannot tell you [where the money came from], I was not the party's treasurer. I received the invitation from Liviu Dragnea, asking me to go with him to the United States," Grindeanu explained.

The former prime minister also said that he traveled to the USA "a day or even two days" after Liviu Dragnea, who had had meetings before his arrival.

"There were the events that you know - the ones related to oath taking. What was the purpose of Mr. Iohannis' visit a year before? To put a cap on his head? It was a matter related to an important moment, when the new US President took the oath," the social democrat MP added.

Asked if the visit to the United States was official, he said: "Semi-official."

Grindeanu denied that Liviu Dragnea had asked him to intervene for certain contracts in the military field: "Never". "I will probably be heard in court," he added.

Former speaker of the Chamber of Deputies Liviu Dragnea has been sent to court by prosecutors of the National Anticorruption Directorate in a new case, in which he is accused of influence peddling and of using influence or authority in connection with his presence at the then US President Donald Trump's inauguration ceremony at the beginning of 2017.