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Notes from Poland is run by a small editorial team and is published by an independent, non-profit foundation that is funded through donations from our readers. We cannot do what we do without your support.
Fugitive Polish opposition politician Zbigniew Ziobro, who fled to the United States rather than face criminal charges in his homeland, has been pictured attending a gala at Donald Trump’s luxury Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida. The US president himself spoke at the event.
The Polish justice minister has responded by saying that he hopes the US will show “true friendship” by cooperating with Poland’s request to extradite Ziobro, just as Poland would do if an American fugitive was on its territory.
Ziobro na przyjęciu w rezydencji Trumpa. Wiadomo, co podano na eleganckiej kolacji w Mar-a-Lago [ZDJĘCIA] https://t.co/geANxBTn0J
— Andrzej Holinka 🇵🇱 #Nawrocki2030 🇵🇱 ✌️ (@HolinkaPis) November 7, 2026
On Saturday, Blask Online, a news website linked to conservative broadcaster TV Republika, published images of Ziobro at Mar-a-Lago alongside senior Republika figures.
They were attending a “retreat and gala” hosted by CPAC, which also organises a major annual conservative political conference and has close ties to Trump. The cheapest tickets to attend the gala cost $2,500, ranging up to $7,500 for VIP access.
Blask Online’s photos show Ziobro eating dinner at the event and speaking to former British Prime Minister Liz Truss. Trump himself addressed the guests, saying that he “wants to congratulate everybody here”.
Nikodem Rachoń, an advisor to Polish President Karol Nawrocki – who is aligned with the opposition and is a close Trump ally – also attended the CPAC event, where he was listed as a speaker.
Ziobro is a deputy leader of the national-conservative Law and Justice (PiS), Poland’s main opposition party, which is aligned with Trump and his Republican Party.
From 2015 to 2023, Ziobro served as justice minister in a PiS-led government, overseeing judicial reforms that are widely seen as having undermined the rule of law.
After a new, more liberal ruling coalition led by the current prime minister, Donald Tusk, took power in December 2023, it launched a number of investigations into the actions of senior PiS officials.
That led, last year, to prosecutors announcing that they want to charge Ziobro with 26 crimes, including leading a criminal group and approving the unlawful purchase of Pegasus spyware, which was used to surveil some of PiS’s political opponents.
However, although parliament approved the lifting of Ziobro’s immunity from prosecution, he had by then already travelled to Hungary, which was at the time ruled by conservative PiS ally Viktor Orbán. In December 2025, the Hungarian government granted Ziobro political asylum.
At this year’s Hungarian parliamentary elections in April, Orbán’s Fidesz party was removed from power and his successor, Péter Magyar, pledged to extradite Ziobro to Poland.
But, just as Magyar was being sworn in in May, Ziobro left Hungary and flew to the United States, reportedly with the help of a senior US State Department official.
In July, Poland’s National Prosecutor’s Office announced that it was sending a request to the US authorities to detain and extradite Ziobro. In late October, the National Prosecutor’s Office told newspaper Fakt that “we have so far not received any response from the US”.
Poland has formally asked the US to detain and extradite former justice minister @ZiobroPL, who faces multiple criminal charges.
He denies wrongdoing and calls the case political revengehttps://t.co/BXdQgWm61q
— Notes from Poland 🇵🇱 (@notesfrompoland) July 27, 2026
On Saturday, Poland’s justice minister and prosecutor general, Waldemar Żurek, was asked by Fakt about the newly published images showing Ziobro attending the gala at Mar-a-Lago.
“I’d like Polish-American friendship to be a true friendship,” replied Żurek. “If a fugitive from the US was being prosecuted by the US justice system for embezzling hundreds of millions, we would cooperate with the US [if that fugitive was in Poland].”
“But when I see that, the day after the US elections, which should be a reflection for Republicans, the president [Donald Trump] is focusing on building a ballroom, nothing will surprise me anymore,” he added. “We’re doing our job and we’ll see this matter through to the end.”
Ziobro na przyjęciu w rezydencji Trumpa. Reaguje Żurek ⬇️ https://t.co/JT8o7d2X1w
— DoRzeczy (@DoRzeczy_pl) November 7, 2026
Last week, before the CPAC event at Mar-a-Lago, Żurek had joked that “Ziobro brings bad luck”, noting that Orbán had lost elections after sheltering him and that now so had Trump’s Republicans.
Żurek added that he hoped the shifting balance of power in the US might weaken the “protective political umbrella” Ziobro had so far enjoyed there and make the American “administration more willing to cooperate with the Polish justice system”, reports news website Onet.
Ziobro himself has denied any wrongdoing and claims that the prosecution against him is an act of “political revenge” by the current government. He says he is willing to face justice in Poland, but only “when the rule of law is restored”.
Notes from Poland is run by a small editorial team and published by an independent, non-profit foundation that is funded through donations from our readers. We cannot do what we do without your support.
Main image credit: Ministerstwo Sprawiedliwości (under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 PL)
Daniel Tilles is editor-in-chief of Notes from Poland. He has written on Polish affairs for a wide range of publications, including Foreign Policy, POLITICO Europe, EUobserver and Dziennik Gazeta Prawna.
