Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk has lashed out at the decision taken by the US to grant a visa to former Polish justice minister Zbigniew Ziobro, who served in the last Law and Justice (PiS) government, calling it “outrageous”.
Ziobro has been indicted by prosecutors under the centre-left coalition led by Tusk on 26 charges of abuse of power stemming chiefly from the alleged misuse of money for political gain from a state crime-victims fund.
He left Poland in late 2024 and was granted political asylum by the Hungarian government led by Viktor Orbán, a PiS and Trump ally, but left that country just hours before the swearing-in of Péter Magyar, the pro-EU figure who had pledged to Tusk that Ziobro would be extradited back to Poland after defeating Orbán in April’s parliamentary election.
Tusk’s remarks ahead of a cabinet meeting held on May 19, 2026, came in the wake of a report by Reuters which claimed that a senior US official personally intervened for Ziobro to be granted a visa to enter the US on May 9, 2026.
The Polish Prime Minister said that “Polish-American relations are in the spotlight due to the outrageous issue of the granting of a visa to Zbigniew Ziobro, a fugitive from the Polish state”.
Tusk warned that extradition proceedings from the US are lengthy, complex and often do not end in success but expressed the hope that “if we reach out with full information about the charges against Ziobro, then perhaps the matter of future extradition will be successful. It is unacceptable that someone who committed such evil acts could escape justice”.
According to Reuters, US Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau had instructed the State Department’s Consular Affairs Bureau to have the American embassy in Budapest issue Ziobro a visa on grounds that the ex-minister was being unjustly prosecuted. The news agency reported that Landau had learned of the case from US Ambassador to Poland Tom Rose and framed the matter to colleagues as “a national security issue”.
The State Department has declined to comment, citing the confidentiality of visa records, though Poland’s foreign ministry sent a diplomatic note to the US embassy in Warsaw on May 12 requesting the legal basis for Ziobro’s entry, to which no response has yet been received.
Current justice minister Waldemar Żurek has complained that the Polish authorities are “having enormous difficulty with our US ally in establishing anything” with regard to the granting of the visa. He said Poland would be supplying the US with evidence of the crimes Ziobro is alleged to have committed.
Ziobro has been indicted for his time in office (2015-2023) on allegations that he led an organised crime group that misappropriated close to €50 million worth of funds from the Justice Fund, a state vehicle for helping the prevention and the victims of crime.
The funds are alleged to have been directed to conservative causes and NGOs and also to illegally purchase the Pegasus spyware**, used in surveillance activities against then-opposition politicians and, according to subsequent parliamentary inquiries, also against prosecutors and journalists**.
Ziobro denies the allegations, arguing that he was following procedures to the letter with regard to the disbursement of the funds, that he is not being charged with benefitting personally from the funds and that the purchase of Pegasus was used to pursue hundreds of suspected crimes, only a few of which were linked to any politicians.
The ex-justice minister claims to be the victim of a “political vendetta” by Tusk’s government and has promised that he would voluntarily return to Poland to face justice, but only “when the rule of law is restored”.
In 2025, Ziobro’s narrative was endorsed by five members of the US House Committee on the Judiciary, who issued a letter to the European Commission expressing “deep concern” about the rule of law in Poland, alleging that the Tusk government was “weaponising the justice system” against PiS in an apparent effort to “silence and damage” the opposition.
The Polish parliament’s Tusk-supporting majority lifted Ziobro’s immunity to face the charges in October 2024, as it has done with all such requests against former state officials of the last PiS government. The Tusk majority pledged that it would pursue all cases of alleged abuses of power by the past administration, and on that promise at least it has been true to its word.
Ziobro is reported to have received a journalist visa so that he could work for Polish independent broadcaster TV Republika as its commentator in the US.
The ex-justice minister’s status as correspondent in the US was confirmed by TV Republika, in response to which the Polish government’s prosecutors launched an investigation into the broadcaster for allegedly aiding Ziobro in fleeing justice. In the days since Ziobro became correspondent for the channel, journalists and the CEO of the station have had false alarms reported in their homes leading to police action at night and in the early hours – which the broadcaster considers to constitute harassment.
The Tusk government, unlike the PiS and Trump-allied President Karol Nawrocki, does not enjoy good relations with Washington. When in opposition Tusk called US President Donald Trump a “Russian asset” and, since coming to power, he and other members of his coalition have said they have doubts about the reliability of the US as an ally and have pivoted towards arguments about European strategic sovereignty pursued by France and Germany.
The Polish Government is also smarting from the decision by the US to cancel the arrival of 4,000 rotational US troops in Poland, without any clarity over whether these numbers will eventually be compensated for by the arrival of US troops from Germany – from which the Pentagon announced on May 1 it would withdraw an initial 5,000 service members over the coming year – in response to US disappointments at the lack of European support for the war in Iran.
Poland has not openly criticised the US administration for the war in Iran but it has also refused any help with sending vessels to the Strait of Hormuz to engage in a potential mine-sweeping operation or a Patriot battery to aid air defence in the region.
