Polish PM: former government used Pegasus spyware to surveil my wife and daughter

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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.

Prime Minister Donald Tusk has claimed that his wife, Małgorzata, and daughter, Katarzyna Tusk-Cudna, were subject to surveillance using Pegasus spyware during the rule of the former Law and Justice (PIS) government.

His announcement came shortly after news emerged that prosecutors have granted Tusk-Cudna victim status in their investigation into the alleged unlawful use of Pegasus under PiS to surveil political opponents.

In response, PiS figures have declared that Tusk’s family was not specifically targeted for surveillance, but may simply have been caught up in the monitoring of a lawyer linked to Tusk who was being investigated for alleged financial crimes.

“It turns out that PiS was surveilling my wife and daughter using Pegasus,” wrote Tusk on social media on Wednesday morning. “In this surveillance of my loved ones, Kaczyński was probably concerned with protecting the institution of the family. In the name of traditional values, of course.”

Jarosław Kaczyński is the leader of the national-conservative PiS, which ruled from 2015 to 2023 and is now the main opposition party. PiS and Kaczyński regularly emphasise the importance of family and traditional values.

Asked to respond to Tusk’s claims today, Kaczyński responded only by calling them “nonsense”, reports the Polish Press Agency (PAP).

Earlier on Wednesday, Onet, a leading news website, had reported that prosecutors have granted Tusk-Cudna victim status and interviewed her. They are reportedly also planning to interview Małgorzata Tusk.

The investigation in question was launched last year by the then justice minister and prosecutor general in Tusk’s government, Adam Bodnar. He revealed that around 600 people were targeted for surveillance using Pegasus, including some political opponents of PiS.

Pegasus, a powerful tool that allows the harvesting of data from mobile devices, was bought from its Israeli producer in 2017. Prosecutors believe that the purchase was conducted illegally, and yesterday indicted a former PiS deputy justice minister over his role in it.

One of the figures targeted for surveillance using Pegasus was Roman Giertych, who was at the time a lawyer with close ties to Tusk, including representing him, his son Michał, and Tusk-Cudna in legal cases. Giertych is now an MP in Tusk’s centrist Civic Coalition (KO).

In June this year, PiS-linked media outlets leaked recordings of a 2019 phone call between Tusk and Giertych, which appears to have been made using Pegasus.

Last month, the current justice minister, Waldemar Żurek, requested that the legal immunity of the chief justice of the constitutional court, Bogdan Święczkowski, be lifted so that he can face charges for allegedly illegally making copies of the surveillance of Giertych when Święczkowski was a senior prosecutor under PiS.

However, last week, the court, which is filled with judges appointed under PiS, rejected the request to lift Święczkowski’s immunity.

Speaking to Onet, the prosecutor overseeing the Pegasus investigation, Józef Gacek, said that he “can confirm that Katarzyna Tusk-Cudna has been questioned by the prosecutor’s office as an injured party in the case concerning the waiver of immunity of Bogdan Święczkowski”.

One also reported, based on inside sources, that Małgorzata Tusk has been called for questioning as part of the investigation. However, that has not been officially confirmed. Neither Katarzyna, who is a fashion blogger, nor Małgorzata are actively involved in politics.

Giertych himself told Onet that the use of Pegasus against him “was aimed solely at gathering information about these people, some of whom were important figures from the perspective of the opposition at the time”.

However, PiS figures have argued that Giertych was legitimately investigated over his role in alleged money laundering relating to a company called Poldnord. In 2020, he was detained and charged in relation to that case. Earlier this year, prosecutors dropped the charges against him.

A former PiS government minister, Janusz Cieszyński, today responded to Tusk’s claim that his family was being surveilled by calling it “a lie and manipulation”.

He pointed to comments by Tomasz Siemoniak, the minister in charge of the security services, saying that Tusk-Celna may have been recorded while contacting someone under Pegasus surveillance.

“It’s probably about Giertych, against whom an investigation was being conducted regarding multi-million-zloty embezzlements,” wrote Cieszyński.

Former PiS justice minister Zbigniew Ziobro, meanwhile, declared that “no one was wiretapping [Tusk’s] wife or daughter”. Instead, he suggested that the issue is that “Tusk dragged his wife and daughter into contact with the swindler Giertych, whom the services were tracking with Pegasus”.

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: WOJCIECH OLKUSNIK / Agencja Wyborcza.pl

Daniel Tilles

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.