Trump Ally Nawrocki Flies Home, Forces His Way Into Poland's Constitutional Tribunal Amid Tusk Takeover Bid

Poland's conservative president was in the air on his way to Africa on Friday when Prime Minister Donald Tusk's camp made its move on the country's top constitutional court. He turned the plane around.

"At a moment like this, the President must be in Poland. I am cutting short my flight to Senegal. I'm coming back," President Karol Nawrocki wrote on X.

What happened at the Tribunal

On Friday, the Constitutional Tribunal's website posted an order suspending its president, Bogdan Święczkowski, and its vice president, Bartłomiej Sochański, for one month. The order was signed by Anna Korwin-Piotrowska, one of the judges picked by Tusk's parliamentary majority whom Nawrocki has refused to swear in. Police then took up positions on the court's grounds.

The Tribunal's own X account said its website had been taken over. "Bogdan Święczkowski is still President of the Constitutional Tribunal, and Bartłomiej Sochański is Vice President," it posted. "Ms. Anna Korwin-Piotrowska is not a judge of the Constitutional Tribunal. All persons taking part in these actions are committing the crime of a coup d'état."

Warsaw police said they had acted on a letter from the prosecutor general and a letter from "a judge of the Constitutional Tribunal" warning of possible threats to the lives and health of the court's judges and staff. Police said they stayed outside the building, were "called there by an authorized person," and detained three people who climbed the fence onto the grounds.

Tusk defended the move. "Restoring the rule of law is our duty," he wrote. "After years of PiS lawlessness, it is a difficult, sometimes painful process, and it requires decisive action. There is no other way."

Jarosław Kaczyński, leader of the conservative Law and Justice party (PiS), called it "an assault on the Constitutional Tribunal," according to his party: "Tusk's services are entering the Tribunal by force." Thousands of people gathered outside the court on Aleja Szucha.

The president walks in

Nawrocki landed in Warsaw Friday evening, his chief of staff, Paweł Szefernaker, posted. The president's office said he would meet at the Presidential Palace with Święczkowski and with the First President of the Supreme Court, Zbigniew Kapiński.

Then he went to the court. "President Karol Nawrocki, accompanied by the First President of the Supreme Court Zbigniew Kapiński, has entered the building of the Constitutional Tribunal," Szefernaker posted at 12:49 a.m. Saturday, Warsaw time.

Getting through the door took a shove. Maciej Berek, who served as a minister in Tusk's government and was with the judges at the door, posted video from the doorway. In it, Nawrocki is heard asking a woman blocking the entrance to step aside before he pushes past.

Berek wrote that the president had "physically attacked" Korwin-Piotrowska and the other judges. The president's spokesman, Rafał Leśkiewicz, answered that Berek had "just documented the commission of a crime, when the usurpers tried to prevent the President of the Republic from entering the Constitutional Tribunal and violated his personal inviolability."

Tusk's foreign minister, Radosław Sikorski, quoted Berek's video with a sneer: "He won against a woman, a Constitutional Tribunal judge."

Ambassadors quit

Two Polish ambassadors resigned in protest on Friday night. Jakub Kumoch, the ambassador to China, wrote that "in view of the events in the country," he could no longer serve. Sikorski replied that Kumoch "no longer represents the Republic." Paweł Soloch, the ambassador to Romania, wrote that he saw no way to keep serving "in connection with the attempt to take over the Constitutional Tribunal contrary to law."

"PM Tusk's people who illegally attempted to take control over the Constitutional Tribunal then agreed to meet President Nawrocki at the court building, yet upon President's arrival, they attempted to block his entry," posted Marcin Przydacz, who heads the president's international policy office.

Washington is watching

Nawrocki is an ally of President Trump, who hosted him in the Oval Office on Sept. 3, 2025, less than a month after he took office. Trump's ambassador in Warsaw, Tom Rose, called Friday's events "very serious indeed."

"We appear to be witnessing an unprecedented confrontation over the government's use of state power and the independence and authority of a constitutional institution," Rose wrote. "America is on Poland's side. It is not our place to judge or interfere in its internal affairs." He urged officials, police and protesters to avoid any escalation, and said Americans and the president "care deeply about this country, its democracy, and its future."