Poland's Constitutional Court Crisis: Tusk, Nawrocki and Police

No one is wondering what the hell happened last night more than the Poles.

So last night, Friday, the president of Poland was flying to Senegal.

Halfway there, he gets a phone call, turns the plane around, and flies home.

The emergency? A Word document. Oh, Quick guide to Polish politics for people who don't care about Polish politics: Donald Tusk, prime minister, former EU boss, Brussels golden boy.

He says, "rule of law" about as often as Americans say, "freedom." Karol Narosky, president, historian, ex-boxer, and once took part in organized fight between football hooligans in a forest on purpose.

Oh, Tusk wants new judges on the Constitutional Court.

Narosky refuses to swear them in, so Poland now has two sets of judges, one building, and a whole lot of anger.

On Friday evening, one of Tusk's judges, not sworn in by the way, the one the president doesn't want to recognize, writes a memo basically saying, "I'm in charge now, and the court's president is suspended." She puts it on the court's website.

Five minutes later, the court's own Twitter account posts, "Our website was hijacked. This is a coup."

Oh, The highest court in the country is now fighting with itself online like two cousins at an Italian wedding, and then someone checks the file's details.

The emergency order was created the night before, Thursday, at 11:00 PM.

Some emergencies you plan for. This one, they apparently scheduled, and then the police arrived.

Police say they are not inside the building.

They're just standing outside in riot gear with weapons, keeping the court's president out of his own office.

By that logic, a burglar standing in your doorway has just never broken in.

So the court's president calls a locksmith. Yes, a locksmith.

At 8:00 PM on a Friday, a Polish man gets a phone call, "Hi, I need you to break into our Constitutional Court." 1:00 in the morning, the president arrives.

His bodyguards get shoved by the police.

He climbs over a wall to get into the building he is constitutionally responsible for, and at the door, Tusk's judges try to physically block him.

If your plan for stopping a former boxer with a hooligan past is stand in the doorway and say, "Please," you should've had a meeting about that plan first. Then Tusk's judge tweets, "The president never got inside." But he's inside. He's sitting on a sofa.

They're sipping juice. And then the same judge posted the scuffle video as proof the president attacked them.

Within an hour, people were replying with the law on assaulting the president, up to five years. He basically filed the evidence himself and asked for a receipt. And where was Poland's foreign minister?

Our arch nemesis, also known as Anne Applebaum's husband, in Atlanta at the G20, making very sure he wasn't in a group photo with Russia's Lavrov. His country's top court is surrounded by riot police, two of his ambassadors to quit,

and his biggest worry is a selfie. Oh, And in 2021, Sikorski tweeted, quote, "Sometimes a coup happens in the courtroom." Years later, his government sent police to the courtroom.

Somebody should check if that tweet was a warning or a to-do list.

Other highlights from one night in Poland, two ambassadors resign in protest, China and Romania, the first time Beijing and Bucharest have agreed on anything. A leaked police order put riot units on standby with submachine guns for the entire next week.

Police say it's for sabotage. Sure. So let's recap. For eight years, Brussels told Poland its courts were a threat to democracy.

Democracy. Now Brussels' favorite government sent police to that court, a locksmith had to break in, and the president had to climb over a wall. And the EU's reaction?

Nothing. Apparently, rule of law only applies to governments Brussels doesn't like. Don't worry. By Monday, they'll tell you it was Russia.

Oh, .