Originally Authored at TheFederalist.com
Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk is facing a credibility crisis after denying he ever attacked President-elect Donald Trump as a Russian agent, despite videotaped evidence of him saying just that in March 2023.
“Trump and his dependence on Russian services is no longer up for debate today. This is not my assumption, it is the result of an investigation by American services,” Tusk said at a public meeting in Bytom, Poland, on March 17, 2023. He further claimed that an investigation showed Trump had been “recruited by Russian intelligence services 30 years ago” and lambasted his opposing party as being too friendly with Trump.
The outlandish allegation that Donald Trump colluded with Russia to win the 2016 election was an elaborate hoax invented and pushed by the Hillary Clinton campaign, intelligence community officials, and compliant media. The claim was shown to be false with the April 2019 release of the so-called Mueller Report. A special counsel office fully staffed with Democrat operatives was unable to find a single American who had colluded with Russia in the lead-up to the 2016 election, much less Trump himself. People who opposed Trump’s foreign policy crafted and spread the lie to harm Trump’s reputation and make it difficult for him to govern.
“Tygodnik Solidarność” journalist Monika Rutke asked Tusk at a press conference whether he still believed Trump was a Russian agent. Tusk sidestepped the question and attacked Minister Mariusz Błaszczak from the Law and Justice Party (PiS) for his suggestion that Tusk’s government was too hostile to Trump for an effective partnership. Again, Rutke asked Tusk whether he still believed Trump was a Russian agent.
Tusk denied that he had done so, claiming falsely that he had “never made such suggestions.”
Tusk is known for strongly disagreeing with an American foreign policy focused on the country’s interests more than European interests, having earlier this year chastised Republican senators for not giving even more money to the Ukraine war effort than the $175 billion they already appropriated. Sen. J.D. Vance, R-Ohio, suggested that Tusk should be far more grateful for the American taxpayer dollars funding his country’s security.
The opposition Law and Justice Party (PiS) pounced on Tusk’s lie, immediately questioning Tusk’s credibility and ability to work with the incoming Trump administration. Law and Justice controlled the Polish parliament during the first Trump presidency and its leaders got along well with Trump. After Trump’s election on Tuesday, the members of the party chanted Trump’s name on the floor of parliament, with one member donning a Trump hat.
One opposition party member posted a graphic with Tusk’s 2023 words next to his 2024 denial. “Unbelievable! This is a level of hypocrisy that is unattainable for ordinary people. Brazenly, in your face,” wrote Radosław Fogiel, another PiS member, posting video of both statements.
“This is how Tusk lies!!” wrote MP Sebastian Kaleta. “Today, the journalist pressed Tusk to respond to his words about Trump’s alleged Russian agentship, and he lied as if nothing had happened, saying that he had never said such words. A disgusting guy. See for yourself.”
Tusk publicly congratulated Trump, a far cry from some of his earlier rhetoric.
Tusk is known for his strenuous anti-Trump statements. While head of the European Council in 2018, Tusk said with friends like Trump, who needs enemies, in response to the decision to exit the Iran nuclear deal. In 2019, he posted a provocative picture on social media of him using his fingers to “shoot” Trump. Politico Europe claims he “delivered a rhetorical beatdown of Trump at the United Nations in 2019” after Trump endorsed patriotism. He also mocked Trump for his claim that people not live in abject fear of the Covid pandemic.
Last year, Tusk claimed Trump had “little chance of winning the next election” and, according to the Washington Reporter, that “our independence, and certainly the peace of Europe, and therefore our lives, would be at great risk if the U.S. shifted back to Trump’s approach.”
Tusk’s foreign minister is Radosław Sikorski, the husband of noted Russia collusion hoaxer Anne Applebaum. Applebaum, who has pushed a variety of hoaxes from her perch at the Democrat propaganda outlet The Atlantic, has bitterly clung to the Russia collusion conspiracy theory, despite its falsehood.
Sikorski caused some controversy for his tweet thanking the United States for blowing up the Nord Stream pipeline. The Biden administration denied participation in the bombing, though some reports dispute that. Sikorski has posted regularly on social media against Trump.
“This raises serious questions about your credibility as a reliable partner for our crucial ally, whom you attack with unsupported allegations,” said Law and Justice member Michal Moskal, urging Tusk to clearly disavow his previous remarks and similar from Sikorski. “Failing to do so would represent a damaging misstep in Polish-American relations, with severe implications for our national security and diplomatic credibility.”
Polish media reports that Trump has recently been made aware of the comments from Tusk and Sikorski and his wife. “Donald Trump is aware of what Radosław Sikorski’s wife wrote about him, what Polish politicians, including Donald Tusk, said about him,” reported one Polish media outlet.