The European Union's top prosecutor has been trying to get Ursula von der Leyen to come in and answer some questions. According to POLITICO, she still hasn't, which is fitting, because the whole investigation is about messages nobody can get her to answer.

I've seen a lot of governments lose paperwork. This is the first one that lost the phone.

Here's what's real, per POLITICO, Reuters, the BBC and the EU's own General Court. In 2021 the European Commission, which von der Leyen runs, signed vaccine deals with Pfizer worth billions of euros, including one for up to 1.8 billion extra doses. Along the way, von der Leyen exchanged text messages with Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla. A New York Times reporter asked to see them. The Commission said it didn't have them.

In May 2025 the General Court ruled the Commission's answers were "based either on assumptions or on changing or imprecise information" and annulled its refusal. In July 2025 the Commission answered again. The texts, it said, were short-lived, never registered, and gone when old phones were formatted and recycled.

So the most expensive group chat in European history ended up at an electronics drop-off.

In 2024 the European Public Prosecutor's Office, known as EPPO, took over a Belgian-led probe into the vaccine talks. POLITICO reports, citing legal documents, that prosecutors have been examining allegations including "interference in public functions, destruction of SMS, corruption and conflict of interest." No charges have been announced, and the Commission says it has cooperated "extensively."

Now the part that should be on a T-shirt. Laura Codruța Kövesi, EPPO's chief, leaves office Friday after seven years. Her parting words to POLITICO: "Some politicians think that they are above the law. If you are called in for a statement, you have to come." Asked if she meant von der Leyen, she declined to comment on specific cases.

She didn't have to. Brussels heard it. Brussels just didn't reply.

The Commission's spokesman said the president "has always been, and continues to be, very cooperative" in answering questions, "within the limits of her duties and her availability." Availability. The woman runs a bloc of 27 countries and 450 million people, and the scheduling problem is the prosecutors.

Kövesi also said EPPO should have 230 European delegated prosecutors and has money for 180. So the EU can find billions for vaccines in a text thread, but it can't find the budget for the 50 people whose job is to read the text thread.

On the sewer scale, I give the Commission four rats out of five. One for the texts, one for the phones, one for "availability," and one for building a prosecutor's office and then treating its summons like a newsletter. They miss the fifth rat only because, technically, nobody has been charged with anything, which is the one record in Brussels nobody lost.

Kövesi summed up her seven years with a line: "In Brussels, no one can hear you scream." Somebody should text that to the president. Just don't expect the phone to keep it.

And here's your bill: the average family health insurance premium hit $26,993 in 2025, per KFF, and your insurer keeps every message you've ever sent it.

This article is satire. The Demorat is a parody news site; real facts are drawn from the linked sources, and jokes, invented scenes, and fictional characters are not real.

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