WASHINGTON – Two top US House of Representatives Democrats on May 22 asked Secretary of State Marco Rubio to explain whether his top deputy helped expedite a visa that allowed a wanted former Polish cabinet minister to flee to the United States from Hungary, evading an extradition request from Polish authorities.
If true, “these events and decisions constitute a massive abuse of power and disregard for the legal immigration processes of the United States”, Representatives Gregory Meeks and James Raskin wrote in a letter to Mr Rubio that Reuters reviewed.
Mr Meeks and Mr Raskin are the senior Democrats on the House foreign relations and judiciary committees respectively.
The granting of the visa represents “an unprecedented level of interference in the domestic politics and judicial systems of two longstanding US treaty allies”, the pair wrote, referring to Poland and Hungary, both of which are NATO members.
Their letter cited a Reuters report published on May 18 that Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau directed senior State Department officials to facilitate and expedite a US visa for former Polish Justice Minister Zbigniew Ziobro.
Mr Ziobro is wanted in Poland on 26 charges, mainly stemming from his alleged misuse of money from a crime victims’ fund. He has denied wrongdoing, saying he is the victim of a politically motivated campaign by Poland’s ruling pro-European Union coalition.
The White House directed inquiries to the State Department.
“As a general matter, we do not comment on congressional correspondence,” a State Department spokesperson said.
The government of Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk says it intends to put Mr Ziobro on trial and that prosecutors have prepared an extradition request to the United States.
Mr Ziobro fled in January to Hungary and received asylum from former Prime Minister Viktor Orban.
Warsaw had hoped that Mr Orban’s defeat by pro-EU rival Peter Magyar in an April election would see Mr Ziobro returned to Poland. Mr Magyar had said that he would extradite him on his first day in office.
Instead, Mr Landau directed senior officials in the State Department’s Consular Affairs Bureau in Washington to instruct the US embassy in Budapest to issue a visa for Mr Ziobro, said three sources, one of whom said it was a journalist visa.
Mr Ziobro secured his visa ahead of Mr Magyar’s May 9 swearing-in and, according to Polish prosecutors, travelled to Italy and then to the US on a refugee document as his Polish passport had been invalidated.
In their letter, Mr Meeks and Mr Raskin noted that Mr Ziobro faces up to 25 years in jail if convicted on the charges he faces, including allegations he used some crime victims compensation funds to buy spyware to use against political rivals.
The lawmakers said that giving the visa to Mr Ziobro threatened to “invite a significant diplomatic crisis” with Poland. They demanded that the Trump administration comply with any extradition requests from Warsaw.
They asked that Mr Rubio answer in writing questions about the case and provide an in-person briefing to their committees no later than June 21.
The questions included whether US President Donald Trump or any of his aides were involved in approving Mr Ziobro’s visa and the grounds on which it was granted.
The pair also demanded any documents and communications between Mr Landau, the Bureau of Consular Affairs, the US embassies in Warsaw and Budapest, and any related to any involvement of Mr Tom Rose, the US ambassador to Poland. REUTERS