“This is about a new stage of the fight – the honeymoon is over, although the attacks on the president have been formulated in one way or another since the inauguration. Now it is September, the political autumn, and the other side is moving to the offensive. It seems to me that the idea, the plan of this attack is tied to the fact that Donald Tusk’s team, although he himself does not personally take part in it, wants to drag us into a world of amnesia, of forgetfulness,” said Prof. Sławomir Cenckiewicz, head of the National Security Bureau (BBN), about the attacks against him from the December 13 coalition.
The attacks from the December 13 coalition against the head of the National Security Bureau, Prof. Sławomir Cenckiewicz, continue. The issue is tied to his access to classified information, on which the Voivodeship Administrative Court (WSA) in Warsaw has also ruled.
One day before Karol Nawrocki was sworn in as President of Poland, the Chancellery of the Prime Minister filed cassation complaints with the Supreme Administrative Court (NSA) against the rulings of the WSA of June 17 of this year regarding the revocation of Cenckiewicz’s security clearance for access to classified information. Since then, a narrative has spread claiming that Cenckiewicz was deprived of such clearance, which was supposed to mean a lowering of the status of the National Security Bureau. The lawyers of the head of the BBN, as well as the Presidential Chancellery, consistently stress that this is untrue, as is directly clear from Article 152 of the Law on Proceedings Before Administrative Courts. According to the provision, “if a complaint against an act or action is upheld, they do not produce legal effects until the judgment becomes final, unless the court decides otherwise.” The court did not decide otherwise.
The December 13 coalition authorities have repeatedly shown that they apply court or tribunal rulings selectively. This time, the spokesperson for the Minister-Coordinator of Special Services, Jacek Dobrzyński, declared that the WSA’s ruling is irrelevant to Prof. Cenckiewicz’s clearance.
“In Poland, it is the National Security Authority (as in all NATO states), meaning the ABW or SKW, that decides who has access to classified information. Neither a court ruling (especially one that is not final), nor a legal opinion, nor the statements of the interested party change this. In other words: if the ABW and SKW tell you that you don’t have access, then you don’t have access. Period,” stated Dobrzyński.
Cenckiewicz’s attorney, Bartosz Lewandowski, responded: “Excuse me? The services do not wield unlimited power. They are subject to court control, and it was precisely the regional court that crushed the arguments behind the decision to revoke Sławomir Cenckiewicz’s security clearance.”
“A New Stage of the Fight”
Prof. Cenckiewicz spoke on the matter today on Michał Rachoń’s program on TV Republika.
“This is once again a big legal scuffle that tires people. Why doesn’t anyone come out and ask why the head of the BBN, crucial for national security, chosen by the president of Poland elected by the people, should not have access. Who and for what reason cares about this?” read Rachoń, citing one online comment.
“Those who care are the same who, every few days, attack me, the presidency, aggressively and cruelly, using extralegal arguments. It makes no sense. From their perspective too, it makes no sense in terms of argumentation. This is about a new stage of the fight – the honeymoon is over, although the attacks on the president have been present since the inauguration. Now it is September, the political autumn, and the other side is moving to the offensive. It seems to me that the idea, the plan of this attack is tied to Donald Tusk’s team, though he himself does not personally take part, wanting to drag us into a world of amnesia, forgetfulness. By that I mean a world of amnesia in which no one reminds us of what their pro-Russian policies looked like – the very same people who attack me today, like Tomasz Siemoniak. To drag us all into that world of amnesia and pour over us the narrative that ‘we all stand under the white-and-red banner, we have always been anti-Russian, we have been fighting the same enemy for decades, if not centuries,'” said the head of the BBN.
“My name, my person breaks this whole ‘operation amnesia.’ I am the man who is the pang of conscience, the guarantee that we will remember,” he added.
Prof. Cenckiewicz recalled how “one politician not from the right-wing camp” asked him after a National Security Council meeting, “how does it feel to sit at the same table with people who are on the cover of your book.”
“And that is the problem. I feel comfortable, because I am right, and they know it. That’s why the aggression, the hatred, the turning their backs, showing up half in a tracksuit to a meeting. It is all connected to this. These are people who cannot cope with their past. They think they managed to pack us all into one train heading toward amnesia, cutting off the past with a thick line, and they believe we will be such fools to buy into this principle, sitting politely in one compartment and saying: ‘we are united in the fight against Russia,'” assessed Rachoń’s guest.
He stressed that Western left-liberal elites pursued pro-Russian policies for years, policies joined after 2007 by Donald Tusk and Radosław Sikorski. Yet there was no self-reflection, and Tusk now tries to cover the past with “crude propaganda.”
Anti-Americanism on the Offensive
“We are seeing Russia step up its activities against Poland. Official data say 21 drones entered Polish airspace. We have the idea of the white-and-red flag under which we must unite – rightly so. We restrain our criticism in these difficult days – rightly so. But the other side is exploiting the moment, not only to attack the presidency. Something more serious is happening – the targeting of our most important ally. Even European support for our defense efforts after the events of September 9/10 is being used to claim that Poland’s most crucial ally, without which NATO cannot exist, is supposedly asleep, doing nothing, and that we together with our European allies alone are capable of defending ourselves against Russia. The falsehood lies in the fact that this ally is present in Poland, that this ally knows what is happening – we have President Karol Nawrocki’s conversation with President Trump, we have the statement of Secretary of State and chief security adviser Marco Rubio, we have constant contact, we have the statements and decisions of American generals and NATO commanders in Europe. We have the stance of the NATO Secretary General – and none of this matters. It is all presented propagandistically in the media as if it were the EU that sent support forces to Poland. Even those forces requested by the General Command of the Armed Forces (DO RSZ) and that supported us are often in this propaganda depicted as European forces. Such distortions will not be tolerated because they are false,” said Sławomir Cenckiewicz.
“The stakes are anti-Atlanticism, anti-Americanism, the expulsion of the United States from Poland and Europe – and that is what the attacks on President Trump and the USA serve. The entire escalation of aggression against President Nawrocki, and also against the head of the Bureau of International Policy, Marcin Przydacz, took place when we were at Blair House and the White House – and the attacks did not come from the media or from X accounts, but from the Minister of Foreign Affairs. What is happening now is a continuation of that strategy, with a short pause connected with what the Russians did on the night of September 9 to 10. It is as Andrew Michta wrote – an attempt to wrestle over a new security architecture in Europe and globally. This is ground zero, a point where I fully share Michta’s position: only the USA can decide the outcome of this contest, while all other actors, led by Russia, China, and some European allies playing the anti-Atlantic card, remain external players in the game,” he added.
He pointed out that the current Polish government has no possibility of meeting or contacting US President Donald Trump. At the same time, it pursues a policy aimed at building a “European army” and marginalizing NATO, which fits into broader European anti-Atlantic concepts.
“Who likes this? Those who have been proclaiming it since 1991 – we dissolved the Warsaw Pact, a relic of the Cold War, while you – NATO – did not dissolve, and the pact remains a Cold War relic,” noted the professor.