How Tusk Turned Lawfare Into a Strategy for Political Dominance

In recent weeks, Tusk’s government has significantly intensified its attacks on the opposition, using the illegally seized justice system as a weapon. First, it filed indictments against former Deputy Minister of Justice Michał Woś and the leadership of the Central Anti-Corruption Bureau, and in recent days, Poland was electrified by the news that the government intends to bring charges and arrest former Minister of Justice Zbigniew Ziobro.

This escalation came after the ruling camp lost the presidential elections in June 2025, in order to accelerate the realization of its main goal: the elimination of the conservative, pro-Atlantic opposition in Poland. Achieving this objective has become a matter of political and existential survival for Tusk and his team. After Karol Nawrocki’s victory, Tusk compared his camp’s situation to that of conquistadors who had burned their ships behind them and had no way back. There is, indeed, much truth in this comparison, because during almost two years in power, the liberal-left leadership has committed a whole series of crimes against the state and abuses of public office—for example, the unlawful, forceful seizure of the premises of public media and the prosecution service; the takeover of the courts; and the suspension of the Chairman of the National Broadcasting Council—all while ignoring binding rulings and decisions of constitutional bodies: the Constitutional Tribunal, the Supreme Court, the National Council of the Judiciary, and the National Broadcasting Council.

These acts are punishable by many years in prison, and the evidentiary process is extremely simple, as it can be based on documents they themselves issued. It is far simpler than in cases of corruption and financial offenses involving Tusk’s closest associates, which drag on from the past. These include, for example, Stanisław Gawłowski, former Secretary-General of Tusk’s party (convicted in a non-final judgment to five years in prison for corruption), Sławomir Nowak, former head of Tusk’s cabinet (indicted for approximately USD 1.4 million in corruption), and Roman Giertych, MP and lawyer for the Tusk family (in January 2025, charges for siphoning over $25 million from a listed company were discontinued). There are many such examples. It is no coincidence, therefore, that the new Minister of Justice and Prosecutor General, Waldemar Żurek, admitted that if he does not destroy the opposition now, once it returns to power, it will put them in prison.

Meanwhile, Donald Tusk—justifying the replacement of former Prosecutor General Adam Bodnar with the new one—stated that “Bodnar really believed that in Poland it is possible to restore the rule of law through civilized methods. And it turned out that this is not true.” Waldemar Żurek has thus received a clear task: to carry out political purges brutally, without regard for the law and with full ruthlessness.

The charges against Zbigniew Ziobro

Now the main target of lawfare has become Zbigniew Ziobro, the leader of PiS’s conservative wing—a man as threatening to Tusk as Jarosław Kaczyński himself. The completely absurd charges brought against Ziobro almost entirely overlap with those that Tusk’s prosecution directed against me—charges on the basis of which the Republic of Hungary granted me legal protection, Interpol refused to issue a Red Notice, and Judicial Watch initiated proceedings pointing to political persecution. The largest group of charges rests on a thesis so absurd that even a first-year law student would reject it: that the minister allegedly allowed me to act beyond the scope of my competence by assigning it to me not through issuing a new regulation, but by amending an existing one. Moreover, these charges were formulated as a result of the criminal falsification of evidence by individuals subordinate to Tusk.

The prosecution further alleges that the minister influenced the decisions of selection committees for NGO public contracts—although, in fact, it is not the committees that make the decisions, but the fund administrator, that is, the minister himself. This follows directly from the statute, which was recently confirmed by the Constitutional Tribunal.

However, two new charges deserve particular attention, as their absurdity is equally—or even more—striking. Among the new allegations is that Minister Ziobro “misappropriated” approximately USD 3.8 million by allocating them to … the renovation of a prosecutor’s office building. The prosecution is attempting to construct legal arguments claiming this was done in violation of regulations, but this is mere acrobatics to serve lawfare. Even commentators hostile to the Right have admitted they are seeing, for the first time, a supposed leader of an “organized criminal group” (since that charge “binds” all others) who allegedly “misappropriated” funds by using them to renovate the very prosecutor’s office building where spokeswoman Katarzyna Adamiak later held a press conference to present those charges to journalists. It would be comical if it were not part of the destruction of the state and brutal political persecution.

For the moment, Tusk has refrained from using brutal coercive pretrial detention measures or psychological torture. However, in the case of Zbigniew Ziobro—hated as much as Jarosław Kaczyński himself—Tusk seems intent on making an exception. After more than a year of investigation, the sudden desire to arrest Ziobro, who only months ago underwent a major surgery to remove an esophagus affected by malignant cancer and barely survived, can hardly be described as anything other than preparation for his physical elimination. The only reason is that Ziobro, for ten years as minister of justice, fought crime—including crimes committed by Tusk’s close associates. He was right in all the major disputes within the Polish Right: he opposed the EU conditionality mechanism, the Green Deal, and sought to withdraw Poland from the gender-based Istanbul Convention—just a few examples. He remains one of Tusk’s most dangerous opponents.

Accused for fighting corruption

It is worth looking more closely at the ‘new’ charge against Ziobro.  The accusation? Alleged “misappropriation” and “exceeding of powers” through concluding an agreement between the Justice Fund and the Central Anti-Corruption Bureau, under which the Bureau received approximately $7 million for activities related to combating crime—namely, the purchase of electronic tools such as Pegasus for operational surveillance by law enforcement authorities. Such tools are used in many countries in Europe, e.g. Spain, and in Poland their use was under judicial control.

The core of the allegation is the claim that the transfer of these funds was unlawful because the Bureau supposedly had no right to be a beneficiary of the Fund.

Meanwhile, under its statute, the Justice Fund may finance crime-prevention activities (in addition to assisting victims and post-penitentiary support). The Central Anti-Corruption Bureau, as a specialized state agency for combating corruption-related crime, clearly fits the category of “public finance units” that may receive such funding by ministerial decision. It has legally defined goals concerning prevention and prosecution, and the purchased tool directly served the purpose of fighting crime. Indeed, the abovementioned Nowak and Giertych were caught thanks to this tool—which likely explains the hostility toward it.

The prosecution justifies its claims by referring to the law regulating the Bureau, which states that “The activities of the Bureau are financed from the state budget.” Therefore, they argue, not from the Fund, which is an extra-budgetary fund (its revenues come from fines imposed by courts on offenders). The prosecutorial acrobatics have no basis in law; they serve only to manufacture a crime based on distorted interpretations and to criminalize administrative decisions made within lawful ministerial discretion.

What is particularly shocking is that Ziobro and Woś have been charged with “misappropriation of property.” Obviously, no one here put anything into private pockets—unlike, incidentally, Tusk’s associates. Under the Polish Criminal Code, one can only “misappropriate” assets for oneself. Even more absurdly, this concerns a situation where a public official transferred state funds from one state institution to another. Such a classification cannot apply to funds on the account of a public unit, which are merely accounting entries.

Lawfare through illegally seized courts

In the two years remaining before the parliamentary elections—scheduled, in the normal cycle, for autumn 2027, and crucial for Tusk’s future—systematic lawfare may indeed eliminate the opposition. Analyzing the structure of the indictment against Ziobro, one could practically bring similar charges against anyone who served in the conservative government.

Tusk can pursue this systematic destruction of the opposition under the pretext of ‘restoring the rule of law’ because he enjoys full support from Brussels and has already seized control of the prosecution service and the judiciary—particularly over the criminal divisions of Warsaw courts. All this happens with the full approval of Brussels, which, for eight years, relentlessly attacked the PiS government.

After the unlawful takeover of the prosecution service in January 2024, Tusk’s government began asserting political control over the courts, starting with the Court of Appeal and the Regional Court in Warsaw. From mid-2024 onward, it launched a wave of dismissals of court presidents and vice-presidents before the end of their terms—now completed by the new Minister of Justice. All these acts were unlawful, carried out without meeting statutory prerequisites and in breach of procedural safeguards: inserting political loyalists into decision-making bodies, ignoring the mandatory consent of the National Council of the Judiciary (a constitutional body safeguarding judicial independence), and disregarding interim injunctions and final judgments of the Constitutional Tribunal.

The newly appointed presidents—unlawfully replacing those dismissed—began purges, especially in Warsaw, creating separate criminal divisions for independent judges and for trusted ones, thus gaining control over judicial panels. At the end of September 2025, the Minister of Justice removed the final safeguard: he abolished the random assignment of cases (introduced under PiS through an automated algorithm) for three-judge panels that hear significant appeals. The last step in consolidating political control was the unlawful dismissal of disciplinary officers in the courts before the expiry of their terms and their replacement with political appointees.

The immediate objective of these actions is to imprison and intimidate opposition politicians. In the longer term, they aim to restore the pre-2017 status quo—a liberal-left juristocracy in which a narrow oligarchy of judges decides who may become a judge, who may be promoted, who faces disciplinary responsibility, and who adjudicates in politically or economically sensitive cases. Such an oligarchy turns the judiciary into an instrument of political power, blocking any decision unwelcome to the liberal-left, pro-German establishment. It will continue to do so regardless of the will of Polish society—predominantly conservative and pro-Atlantic—clearly expressed at the ballot box.

In this way, Tusk seeks to remain in power, fully aware that losing it threatens him and his circle with many years in prison. To that end, he must weaken the opposition by eliminating its most active and dangerous politicians and intimidating the rest. After nearly two years of unlawfully capturing state institutions, he can now do so far more efficiently. Yet this remains a scandalous abuse of power—lawfare under false pretexts—disregarding the fact that political persecution and purges are destroying the security structures of the Polish state, a key country on NATO’s eastern flank. And all this is happening under the inspiration and with the approval of the liberal-left establishment that has captured the central institutions of the European Union—an establishment determined, at all costs, to annihilate patriotic and sovereignty-oriented political movements across Europe.