WARSAW, Poland (AP) — Polish prosecutors on Tuesday requested lifting the parliamentary immunity of a former justice minister who is facing charges of abuse of power and mishandling funds including for buying Israeli spyware allegedly used against political opponents.
Zbigniew Ziobro was alleged to have misused a fund under the Ministry of Justice for victims of violence for other purposes, including the purchase of Israeli Pegasus surveillance software.
Prosecutors said they have evidence Ziobro allegedly created and led an organized crime group responsible for diverting money from the same Justice Fund for personal and political interests. Ziobro served as the justice minister and prosecutor general between 2015 and 2023, under the conservative Law and Justice party.
Anna Adamiak, a spokesperson for the General Prosecutor's Office, told a news conference that 150 million zloty ($42 million) from the Justice Fund were misappropriated. Prosecutors were seeking Ziobro’s arrest on charges that carry a maximum penalty of 25 years in prison, she added.
The current government, led by center-right Prime Minister Donald Tusk, claimed that Law and Justice used Pegasus to spy on political opponents, including prominent politicians from Tusk's party. Polish authorities are investigating the claims.
Tusk's government came to power with a promise to hold the former government to account for alleged abuses committed while in office.
“There are no sacred cows,” the current justice minister, Waldemar Żurek, wrote on X, announcing the request to lift Ziobro's immunity. The speaker of the Sejm, the lower house of parliament, who receives the request, is a political ally of Tusk.
Prosecutors have earlier charged Michał Woś, a former Ziobro deputy, with abuse of power for his role in the purchase of Pegasus. Prosecutors have also unsuccessfully sought the lifting of the immunity of Bogdan Święczkowski, the current president of Poland's Constitutional Tribunal, over orders he gave while he served as a national prosecutor in relation to Pegasus surveillance operations.
Zbigniew Ziobro did not immediately respond to the prosecutors' allegations.
He was in Budapest, Hungary, on Monday, writing on X that he would tell “Hungarian friends” what life under a “Brussels-anointed prime minister looks like," in a swipe at Tusk. The Law and Justice party accuses Tusk of being an EU puppet.
Hungary, led by nationalist Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, has hosted several politicians close to Law and Justice while Polish authorities were seeking them.
Speaking during a parliamentary commission looking into Pegasus, Ziobro said Sept. 29 that he was the initiator of the purchase of the spy software but insisted it was used for legitimate purposes, to uncover “the activities of people who were embezzling Polish assets."
FILE - Former Justice Minister Zbigniew Ziobro speaks to reporters alongside in Warsaw, Poland, Sept. 26, 2020. (AP Photo/Czarek Sokolowski, file)
Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powellsaid Sunday the Department of Justice has served the central bank with subpoenas and threatened it with a criminal indictment over his testimony this summer about the Fed’s building renovations.
The move represents an unprecedented escalation in President Donald Trump’s battle with the Fed, an independent agency he's repeatedly attacked for not cutting its key interest rate as sharply as he prefers. The renewed fight will likely rattle financial markets Monday and could over time escalate borrowing costs for mortgages and other loans.
The subpoenas relate to Powell’s testimony before the Senate Banking Committee in June, the Fed chair said, regarding the Fed’s $2.5 billion renovation of two office buildings, a project Trump has criticized as excessive.
Here's the latest:
A leader of the Canadian government is visiting China this week for the first time in nearly a decade, a bid to rebuild his country’s fractured relations with the world’s second-largest economy — and reduce Canada’s dependence on the United States, its neighbor and until recently one of its most supportive and unswerving allies.
The push by Prime Minster Mark Carney, who arrives Wednesday, is part of a major rethink as ties sour with the United States — the world’s No. 1 economy and long the largest trading partner for Canada by far.
Carney aims to double Canada’s non-U.S. exports in the next decade in the face of President Trump’s tariffs and the American leader’s musing that Canada could become “the 51st state.”
▶ Read more about relations between Canada and China
The comment by a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson came in response to a question at a regular daily briefing. President Trump has said he would like to make a deal to acquire Greenland, a semiautonomous region of NATO ally Denmark, to prevent Russia or China from taking it over.
Tensions have grown between Washington, Denmark and Greenland this month as Trump and his administration push the issue and the White House considers a range of options, including military force, to acquire the vast Arctic island.
Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen has warned that an American takeover of Greenland would mark the end of NATO.
▶ Read more about the U.S. and Greenland
Trump said Sunday that he is “inclined” to keep ExxonMobil out of Venezuela after its top executive was skeptical about oil investment efforts in the country after the toppling of former President Nicolás Maduro.
“I didn’t like Exxon’s response,” Trump said to reporters on Air Force One as he departed West Palm Beach, Florida. “They’re playing too cute.”
During a meeting Friday with oil executives, Trump tried to assuage the concerns of the companies and said they would be dealing directly with the U.S., rather than the Venezuelan government.
Some, however, weren’t convinced.
“If we look at the commercial constructs and frameworks in place today in Venezuela, today it’s uninvestable,” said Darren Woods, CEO of ExxonMobil, the largest U.S. oil company.
An ExxonMobil spokesperson did not immediately respond Sunday to a request for comment.
▶ Read more about Trump’s comments on ExxonMobil
Trump’s motorcade took a different route than usual to the airport as he was departing Florida on Sunday due to a “suspicious object,” according to the White House.
The object, which the White House did not describe, was discovered during security sweeps in advance of Trump’s arrival at Palm Beach International Airport.
“A further investigation was warranted and the presidential motorcade route was adjusted accordingly,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement Sunday.
The president, when asked about the package by reporters, said, “I know nothing about it.”
Anthony Guglielmi, the spokesman for U.S. Secret Service, said the secondary route was taken just as a precaution and that “that is standard protocol.”
▶ Read more about the “suspicious object”
Trump said Iran wants to negotiate with Washington after his threat to strike the Islamic Republic over its bloody crackdown on protesters, a move coming as activists said Monday the death toll in the nationwide demonstrations rose to at least 544.
Iran had no direct reaction to Trump’s comments, which came after the foreign minister of Oman — long an interlocutor between Washington and Tehran — traveled to Iran this weekend. It also remains unclear just what Iran could promise, particularly as Trump has set strict demands over its nuclear program and its ballistic missile arsenal, which Tehran insists is crucial for its national defense.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, speaking to foreign diplomats in Tehran, insisted “the situation has come under total control” in fiery remarks that blamed Israel and the U.S. for the violence, without offering evidence.
▶ Read more about the possible negotiations and follow live updates
Fed Chair Powell said Sunday the DOJ has served the central bank with subpoenas and threatened it with a criminal indictment over his testimony this summer about the Fed’s building renovations.
The move represents an unprecedented escalation in Trump’s battle with the Fed, an independent agency he has repeatedly attacked for not cutting its key interest rate as sharply as he prefers. The renewed fight will likely rattle financial markets Monday and could over time escalate borrowing costs for mortgages and other loans.
The subpoenas relate to Powell’s testimony before the Senate Banking Committee in June, the Fed chair said, regarding the Fed’s $2.5 billion renovation of two office buildings, a project that Trump has criticized as excessive.
Powell on Sunday cast off what has up to this point been a restrained approach to Trump’s criticisms and personal insults, which he has mostly ignored. Instead, Powell issued a video statement in which he bluntly characterized the threat of criminal charges as simple “pretexts” to undermine the Fed’s independence when it comes to setting interest rates.
▶ Read more about the subpoenas
President Donald Trump speaks to reporters while in flight on Air Force One to Joint Base Andrews, Md., Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)
President Donald Trump waves after arriving on Air Force One from Florida, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026, at Joint Base Andrews, Md. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)
