Poor Ivan Langer

ODS Vice Chair Ivan Langer is so rich journalists won't leave him alone. It all started when Právo reported that, on top of his salary as an MP, he earns Kč 83,000 per month as a trainee at an Olomouc law firm. Journalists wondered not only where he found the time, but also what he was doing to deserve such a high salary, and they started looking for conflicts of interest. Langer has a full bag of tricks and is especially active in the media branch. He's a clever lad, though, and isn't likely to engage in conflicts of interest for the law firm's known clients. What reporters should look for are the unknown clients who might pay invoices but don't receive any legal advice. A law firm, with its client confidentiality, is a much better way for a politician to receive money than, say, some murky real-estate deal. Stanislav Gross, Miroslav Kalousek and Vlastimil Tlustý all learned that the hard way.