Donald Trump having dinner with Romanian convicted felon days before inauguration

Days before inauguration president elect Donald Trump had dinner with a convicted felon.
The felon is Romanian politician Liviu Dragnea. He is the leader of the Romanian Socialist Party (PSD the party of former communists and members of former secret police during dictator Nicolae Ceausescu). Dragnea was having dinner last night in Washington D.C. with president elect Donald Trump that probably cost him a six or seven figure number to attend.

 Dragnea's FB page

Dragnea was convicted in 2016 of electoral fraud over a 2012 attempt to impeach then president and political rival, Traian Basescu. Dragnea was sentenced to two year suspended jail time for his role which consisted of masterminding a campaign to use bribes and forged ballot papers to swing an impeachment vote against then president Traian Basescu, a rival of  Social Democrat Party. 

 Last year his party won the general elections due to voting absenteeism. He wanted to appoint himself as the new Prime Minister, but the law didn't allow him because of his previous conviction. Just as yesterday, his cabinet tried to pass a decree to amnesty a series of felons, most of which were politicians convicted of corruption.  Part of that drafted decree included a provision to also erase Dragnea's conviction.( he didn't gave up completely the idea of becoming a PM at some point) 

The president of Romania Klaus Johannis used his authority to delay that from happening by attending his first cabinet meeting since taking office 3 years ago.

  Yesterday protests in Romania 

Yesterday, protests against the government, over those issues, erupted in major cities in Romania. The government argues that it needs to get the criminal code in line with recent court rulings and argues that pardons could help ease prison over-crowding. Legal officials have criticised plans to change the law without consulting the judiciary or going through parliament, writes EuroNews agency. In reality the decree was specially designed to favor corrupted and convicted politicians, most of them members of Socialist Party.

 According to the Romanian media, Dragnea's invitation to inauguration was issued by Eliott Broidy who's the vice-chair of the Trump Victory Fund, a joint fundraising committee between Trump and the Republican National Committee.
Allegedly, in 2009, Broidy pleaded guilty to committing a felony by giving nearly $1 million in illegal gifts to state officials in order to secure a lucrative deal with New York’s public pension fund for his then-firm Markstone Capital Partners.
Broidy avoided jail time by blowing the whistle on the same people who accepted his bribes. He admitted to ponying up $75,000 for an all-expanses paid luxury trip to Jerusalem, which included first-class tickets, luxury hotel suites, a helicopter tour, and a personal driver for New York State’s comptroller and his family, de american media.

 According to the New York Time, the Presidential Inaugural Committee, the group responsible for planning and funding the events surrounding Trump’s inauguration ceremony,  has put together a benefits packages that will force big donors, to spend between $25,000 to $1 million or more in order to attend the events.Their end goal is to raise up to 75 million dollars.

D. Manea a Romanian national protesting Dragnea's visit to Washington D.C.