Former Czech PM Babiš in Turmoil After Email Leak

Always double-check your recipient before you hit that “send” button.

That’s a lesson former Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babiš is digesting today after his request that an aide dig up dirt on Czech Foreign Minister Jan Lipavský went public.

“Give me some topics, some background on this motherfucker [Lipavský],” Babiš wrote in a chaotic email that he intended to send to his adviser, Jan Rovenský, with several people from his ANO party copied in. “Write me the Israel story, how he turned his back on our people, how he went to Doha, how he goes everywhere, campaigning, mail-in voting.”

Lipavský had called Babiš “a security risk” during a March 10 talk show on the ČT public broadcaster.

Babiš’ mail also contained mentions of Lipavský’s daughter and a wife. “Does he have kids? Does he speak languages?” the sender asked.

Unfortunately for the former PM, there’s another Jan Rovenský in Czech public life — an ecological activist, who was not best pleased to receive the communication.

“It’s not the first time that Andrej Babiš has accidentally sent me an email, apparently addressed to my namesake, who is his spin doctor,” Rovenský wrote on Facebook. “I never published any of them. I usually either politely ignored them or pointed out the sender’s mistake … But to drag your opponents’ children and wives into this is totally over the line.”

The email, which was leaked to Czech media, provoked strong reactions from several politicians, including Lipavský.

“The email reached me vicariously and its contents disgusted me. It is a great challenge for Czech society to reject, once and for all, the StB [Communist-era Czechoslovak secret police] methods in politics,” Lipavský told Novinky.

Babiš was listed in Communist-era ŠtB files as an “agent” code-named Bureš, but has always denied cooperating with the ŠtB and maintained that his name appeared there in error. In February, however, the Slovak Constitutional Court rejected his complaint against lower court verdicts in the case. (Babiš was born in Slovakia.)

Questioned about the leaked email, Babiš said it was ridiculous to talk of “compromising material” when “things can be traced on the internet,” and apologized for using vulgarity.

“Everyone is talking about war and sending our troops to Ukraine. That is why I wanted my colleagues to find out whether Mr. Lipavský also has children and whether he can imagine the fear that parents experience when they think of their children having to go to war,” he said on X.

In the latest election poll by the Kantar agency, Babiš and his opposition ANO party lead with 39 percent support.