Maintains
In his book, titled “In a Foreign Alphabet: How People of the Kremlin and PIS Played with the Eavesdropping,” Rzeczkowski maintains that, just as with the US election meddling that special counsel Robert Mueller called “sweeping and systematic,” Russia’s goal with Waitergate was to weaken the West.
“It was to open the road to power for the anti-Western, anti-liberal, anti-democratic opposition of the time,” Rzeczkowski told a Polish parliamentary panel last month. “Russia had a full, spectacular success.”
The panel stemmed from an opposition lawmaker’s push to pressure the government to shed light on the alleged Russian connection. A newspaper subsequently reported that Poland’s counterintelligence service is investigating whether a foreign spy agency played a role.
The Russian Foreign Ministry has dismissed claims of Kremlin involvement.
“Poland’s political establishment and media community have been working for years to put out a multitude of hoaxes about ‘Russian machinations,’” the ministry said. “We see no need to comment on such absurd allegations.”
A wariness that Russia is trying to destabilize democracy in central Europe has permeated politics in Poland and neighboring nations since they ended communism after decades under Moscow’s control. Many have since joined NATO and the EU while more have applied.
When the eavesdropping scandal broke five years ago, then-Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk immediately pointed to Russia. His remark would give Rzeczkowski his book title: “I do not know in which alphabet this scenario was written, but I know exactly who could be the beneficiary.”
Tusk became president of the European Council several months after the scandal unfolded, a job that involves overseeing the common agenda of the EU’s national leaders. He recently said he was more convinced now of “the Russian track in this whole affair.”
The coal tycoon’s arrest in Spain and recent extradition to Poland has added to the intrigue. Polish prosecutors accused Marek Falenta, 43, of recording the politicians to punish the government for trying to block imports of Russian coal. He fled before starting a 2½ -year prison sentence.
After his capture, Falenta threatened to expose Law and Justice members for allegedly recruiting him in the recording plot if he didn’t receive a presidential pardon, according to letters leaked to Polish newspapers. He told the president, prime minister and the powerful ruling party leader he expected better treatment in return for helping them.
Government officials have called the letters an act of desperation from an untrustworthy source. They refused to respond to requests by The Associated Press for comment on the allegations of Russian responsibility for Waitergate.
Dozens of politicians had hundreds of hours of conversations illegally recorded at the two restaurants between June 2013 and June 2014. Poland’s government, led at the time by Tusk’s centrist Civic Platform party, had declared a fight against Russian coal imports and was a strong advocate for the Western course that activists were agitating for in Ukraine.