The KO, Third Way, Left coalition announces the liquidation of the CBA. Cezary Tomczyk: I think about what scandals the CBA uncovered and I can’t remember

By providing the police and the Central Bureau of Investigation with additional jobs and transferring the competences of the Central Anticorruption Bureau, matters will certainly be handled much better, without political influence – said MP Magdalena Sroka (Trzecia Droga-PSL) in “Fakty po Faktach” on TVN24. – I think about what scandals the CBA discovered and I can’t remember – said Cezary Tomczyk, an MP from the Civic Coalition.

The coalition agreement signed by the leaders of the Civic Coalition, Third Way and the New Left states that “the coalition will depoliticize the uniformed services and secret services and introduce clear rules for state control over them.”

“The Central Anti-Corruption Bureau will be liquidated and its resources and competences transferred to other services, including the department for combating corruption crimes in the Central Police Investigation Bureau. This will strengthen the fight against corruption, completely abandoned by the previous government. Citizens will have the right to information about the services’ interest in them, in particular information about the operational control carried out regarding them,” we read.

MP Magdalena Sroka (Trzecia Droga-PSL) was asked on Monday in “Fakty po Faktach” on TVN24 whether the police will carry out these additional duties.

– Let’s remember that the CBA has 1,200 officers. The point is not that we will actually eliminate the entire department that fights organized crime or corruption, but that we will actually include it in the structures of the police and the Central Bureau of Investigation, Sroka said.

– There are really departments there that function very well. And while the CBA conducts about 600 such cases a year, about 40 percent of them in its materials, police officers in the anti-corruption departments or in the economic departments handle 3-4,000 such cases, she added. – By additionally providing the police and the Central Anticorruption Bureau with additional jobs and transferring these competences, these matters will certainly be handled much better, without political influence, as has been the case so far in the Central Anticorruption Bureau – said the Third Way MP.

The MP from the Civic Coalition said in turn that “the police have tools for this and the police will deal with it.”

– But quoting a classic, let’s ask ourselves one basic question: what scandals did the CBA uncover? Because today I can remember from memory what scandals were detected by TVN or various portals, for example Onet or Wirtualna Polska. But I think about what scandals the CBA discovered and I can’t remember, said Tomczyk.

– But it turns out that the CBA distributed materials to the media, secret materials, confidential materials with the highest secrecy clauses. And beware, this is a crime, he added. – So if today the CBA is managed by people who are probably criminals or were convicted by court verdicts and only pardoned by President (Andrzej) Duda, then I’m sorry, what do they specialize in? In breaking the law or catching criminals? – asked the KO politician.

TVN24 guests also commented on the case of Tomasz Kaczmarek. As “Gazeta Wyborcza” found out, a former officer of the Central Anticorruption Bureau (2006-10) and a former PiS MP (2011-15) filed a crime report last Friday and “applied for being granted the status of a crown witness.” Kaczmarek allegedly testified that his former superiors Mariusz Kamiński, Maciej Wąsik and Ernest Bejda ordered him to provide top secret information to pro-government journalists “to destroy political competitors,” we read in the text.

The spokesman for the District Prosecutor’s Office in Olsztyn, prosecutor Daniel Brodowski, in a message sent to tvn24.pl, confirmed that “on November 17, 2023, Mr. Tomasz K. appeared at the Olsztyn-Północ District Prosecutor’s Office in Olsztyn, where procedural activities were carried out with him.”

The press office of the Minister Coordinator of Special Services said in a statement on Monday that Tomasz Kaczmarek’s current activity is “another attempt by him to obtain impunity.” “His story is based on lies,” we read.

READ: Agent Tomek and the media control system in the prosecutor’s office. “Gazeta Wyborcza” about secret services in Poland

– Today we see that what Tomek K., the famous agent Tomek, did, confirms the way both Minister Kamiński and Wąsik function and act – said Sroka. – Today we have so much evidence that they functioned in the same way during this term that there is really nothing to discuss – she added.

– We saw and remember the case of Senator (Krzysztof) Brejza, who described exactly how he was treated by the services. But today one more important question should be asked: how many such Tomek agents existed during the current PiS government. I am convinced that there were many officers who allowed themselves to be manipulated and exploited in this way and acted together with Minister Kamiński and Wąsik, and in return they received rewards in the form of, for example, employment in State Treasury companies for big money – said the MP.

– This is what, in my opinion, the investigative commission or investigative commissions that will be established this term should do, in order to thoroughly explain what happened – said Sroka.

– Firstly, we know that agent Tomek lied many times, secondly, we know that the CBA lied many times. And the best that can happen at the moment is a concrete verification of Tomek’s agent’s words – said Tomczyk.

– Let me remind you, I think it is very important, Mr. Kamiński, the current Minister of Internal Affairs, coordinator of the secret services, said that Agent Tomek was the best agent in the history of Poland, that he was a gem. After all, he introduced it to the Sejm. Certainly, and we can say this with confidence, Agent Tomek knows almost everything about Mr. Kamiński. About Mr. Wąsik too. Honestly, I think this knowledge must be included in the prosecutor’s office, I’m really looking forward to it, he added.

– We know exactly what the PiS government looked like in the years, for example, 2005-2007. Mr. Wąsik, whom Agent Tomek is talking about today, eavesdropped on people six thousand times during the time he worked at the CBA. It’s in the documents, it’s in the testimonies, it’s in the court files. He even had a nickname, if I remember correctly, “rubber ear”. After all, this man was not an officer who dealt with wiretapping. He was a civilian supervisor who had no right to access these documents. He built a special listening post in his office. And as the MP said, they have been doing exactly the same over the last eight years – said the KO MP.

Main photo source: TVN24