Minister Teoder Atanasiu admitted he used the secret service of the Ministry of Defence for political espionage purposes. During the "10 sharp" program on Realitatea TV station, the Liberal Defence minister did not shrink from saying an entire Directorate of Information (Directorate General of Military Information - Rom. DGIA) under his subordination was keeping him up to date with "what was leaving from Mrs. Saftoiu in Cotroceni, on credible sources close to the Palace". Atanasiu's revealing comes on the background of an avalanche of scandals relating to the political police the Liberal minister makes with the help of the DGIA deputy Paun Vasile. The two make use of intimidation, threatening and blackmailing the media representatives, the attempt to manipulate them, the use of the State institutions, of Romania's official ways of communication, of the secret cipher in order to achieve personal and party interests. "Meduza" Operation, which targeted the ZIUA daily, the document on the MoD lobby among the MPs and the grand maneuvers regarding the withdrawal from Iraq are just a few of the plans the Liberal tandem Atanasiu-Paun staged. The document regarding the infiltration of counter-information officers among the members of the Parliament, about which Atanasiu said he knew nothing, had been drawn attention upon in June 2005, by Academia Catavencu tabloid. The MoD chiefs say loudly that it had never been put to practice. They lack credibility as the order has been repealed only in a verbal form so far.