Poland’s Prime Minister Donald Tusk has announced his centre-left coalition government is forming a special task force to examine any Polish links to the Jeffrey Epstein sex scandal and any potential connections to Russia.
During a press conference yesterday, Tusk said he was appointing a special investigation team under the auspices of his justice minister, Waldemar Żurek, and his intelligence services co-ordinator, Tomasz Siemoniak, to review the documents available in the public domain.
“We have decided to establish an analytical group and possibly launch an investigation if the analyses confirm our concerns regarding the paedophilia scandal in the United States,” said the PM.
He referred to information made available a few days ago that suggested there were individuals in the city of Kraków who had communicated with Epstein about Polish women.
Tusk stated that the government wants to verify any Polish connections and ensure justice for possible victims. He said if it transpired that there was “any exploitation of Polish children by the paedophile network and the organiser of this satanic ring, Mr Epstein, then we will do everything to effectively prosecute those who committed such horrific crimes and provide redress to victims”.
Publicly available court documents linked to the Epstein scandal mention four Polish individuals. These are his house manager Janusz Banasiak, models Mariana Idźkowska and Sandra Kubicka and former tennis player turned art collector Wojciech Fibak. None of them has been accused of any crime.
In the latest batch of emails, though, evidence has emerged that there was a man, Daniel Siad, who had allegedly been “scouting’” for girls for Epstein in Kraków back in 2009.
Tusk also said the task force would examine the question of whether Russian intelligence services may have played a part in Epstein’s activities.
He added that the convicted sex offender’s finances, his links with young Russian women and claims that he had access to unexplained large sums of money, raised questions that the Polish authorities want to explore.
“More and more commentators and experts assume that it is very probable that this was a prepared operation by the Russian KGB, the so-called honey trap intended to create material to blackmail prominent figures,” said Tusk.
“Epstein clearly had unlimited access to large sums of money, the source and origin of [which] remain unclear,” he added. “He worked with numerous young Russian women, who were pimped out by him.”
The Polish PM noted that the files released so far contain numerous mentions of Russia, including a claim by an anonymous informant that, “Epstein was [Russian] President Vladimir Putin’s wealth manager.”
This meant the whole affair had implications for the security of the Polish state, claimed Tusk
“I do not need to tell you how grave this is for the security of the Polish state. There is the increasingly likely possibility that Russian intelligence agencies co-organised this operation, which can only mean that they also possess compromising materials against many leaders.”
The opposition Conservatives (PiS) have reacted with scepticism to Tusk’s announcement. They said Tusk wished to pursue anything that may embarrass US President Donald Trump, the man Tusk had called a “Russian asset” back in 2023.
Former deputy foreign minister and PiS MEP Arkadiusz Mularczyk told portal Niezależna that Tusk was keen to interfere in US politics.
“It is obvious that Donald Tusk is trying to jump on this media bandwagon that has swept through the USA and Europe,” he said.
“He wants to gain his bit of the limelight by undermining President Trump. Back in the days of the [former US president Joe] Biden’s administration there were also calls for releasing the Epstein files and how those who demanded their disclosure were labelled cranks.
“Today, when Donald Trump has released them there is nothing there that incriminates him, Tusk seeks to investigate some obscure traces relating to Poles and goes back to seeking proof of Trump’s collusion with Russia,” Mularczyk said.
The PiS MEP added that Tusk would be “better advised to concentrate on the search for Russian agents working in Poland” following the disclosure that a ministry of defence official had been detained for allegedly working for Russia.
Mularczyk also mentioned Poland’s own recent paedophile scandal in which an owner of a nightclub near Gdańsk had received a six year prison sentence for sex offences with minors but was allowed to leave the country ahead of the appeal against his conviction. The MEP claimed that was evidence that the present government is merely seeking to jump onto the Epstein bandwagon but is not serious about the issues involved.
Patryk Słowik, editor of the news portal being set up by the popular Youtube channel Kanał Zero, adopted a similar line of argument, commenting: “This is Tusk riding the wave of headlines. These inquiries will come to nothing, they are just hot air. In a few days time no one will remember anything about this task force.”
