Germany’s Scholz faces grilling over role in tax scam

BERLIN (AP) — German Chancellor Olaf Scholz is due to appear Friday before a parliamentary panel in the northern state of Hamburg to answer lawmakers’ questions regarding what he knew about a tax evasion scam when he was mayor of the city. Political opponents have called on Scholz to provide more information about meetings he had in 2016 and 2017 with private bank M.M. Warburg that faced calls to repay millions of euros in tax refunds it had wrongly claimed for share trades. Scholz has previously stated that he doesn’t remember details of the meetings, but denies that he intervened to get Hamburg officials to drop the repayment demands. Opposition leader Friedrich Merz of the center-right Christian Democrats said he didn’t believe Scholz’s memory lapses.