Donald Trump’s deputy secretary of state personally pulled strings to land a U.S. visa for a fugitive Polish ex-minister wanted on 26 criminal charges back home, according to a report.
Christopher Landau, 62, the State Department’s second-in-command, intervened on behalf of Zbigniew Ziobro, 55, the politician who reshaped Poland’s judiciary in ways the European Union later condemned as a hammer-blow to the rule of law.
Landau justified rushing Ziobro’s paperwork through as “a national security issue,” three sources told Reuters, although the newswire could not establish why. The Harvard-trained appellate lawyer leaned on top brass inside the Consular Affairs Bureau, telling them to instruct the U.S. embassy in Budapest to cut Ziobro a journalist visa, according to one source.
The case had been flagged to Landau earlier this year by Tom Rose, America’s envoy in Warsaw, who cast the ex-minister as the victim of an unfair prosecution, a fourth source told the newswire.
In December, Trump granted a “full and complete pardon” to former Honduran president Juan Orlando Hernandez, who had been sentenced to 45 years in U.S. prison for helping smuggle hundreds of tons of cocaine into America, as the Daily Beast reported.
The Hernandez decision drew a public shredding even from the Murdoch-owned The Wall Street Journal, which questioned whether Trump had been swayed by a fawning letter from the disgraced Central American leader.
Trump has also gone to bat for Brazilian ally Jair Bolsonaro, who faces trial over an alleged coup plot, demanding in a Truth Social rant that Brazil “LEAVE BOLSONARO ALONE!”
Bolsonaro’s son, Eduardo, fled to the U.S. last year, claiming he was avoiding “political persecution” at home.
In Ziobro’s case, the visa was the final step in an extraordinary escape. The former minister had been holed up in Hungary, where strongman Viktor Orban granted him asylum in January. But Orban was unseated in April by pro-EU challenger Peter Magyar, leaving Ziobro exposed. Magyar had campaigned on a pledge to send him back to face the music on day one.
Magyar took office on May 9. Thanks to Landau’s intervention, Ziobro had already secured his U.S. visa and slipped out of Hungary before Magyar even arrived at his desk, Reuters reported.
What he is wanted for in Poland is serious. Ziobro faces 26 criminal charges, mostly tied to allegations he misused money from a fund supposed to help crime victims, funneling cash into political projects backing the Law and Justice–led right-wing coalition. He denies wrongdoing and claims he is the target of a politically motivated campaign by Poland’s pro-EU government.
The White House referred the Daily Beast to the State Department when reached for comment.
A State Department spokesperson refused to address detailed queries, including about Secretary of State Marco Rubio or Rose’s involvement, telling the Beast only: “Due to visa record confidentiality, we have nothing to share on this matter.”
