“The Commission (…) did not receive Gitan Nausėda’s answers to the written questions. The commission states that President Gitan Nausėda’s refusal to testify before the commission is incompatible with the Constitution, the oath given by the president and the laws,” states the draft of the investigation conclusions registered on Tuesday, which will be considered by the entire Seimas.
Such a conclusion was unanimously approved by the commission, but only the representatives of the governing factions and one member of the opposition – the democrat Vytautas Bakas, who chaired the commission – worked in it. Other opposition factions refused to participate in this parliamentary inquiry.
The temporary commission invited G. Nausėdas to testify in mid-February, and following not receiving an answer, sent 70 questions at the beginning of March, but did not receive any answers either.
The conclusion states that the president, by not appearing without giving explanations to the commission, prevented it from fulfilling the tasks formulated by the Seimas, and also prevented the Seimas – the representative of the nation – from performing its constitutional functions and implementing the constitutional powers of the parliament.
“In addition, President Gitanas Nausėda, by his actions (inaction), violated the provisions of the oath to respect and enforce the laws and the provisions of Article 77, Part 2 of the Constitution,” the document reads.
This article of the Constitution states that the president represents the state of Lithuania and does everything that is assigned to him by the Constitution and laws.
On the order of the Seimas, the temporary commission examined the information of the former employee of the Department of State Security (VSD) Tomas Gailius regarding the actions of the heads of the department when checking the environment of G. Nausėdas, who ran for president five years ago.
The parliamentarians were also investigating possible illegal financial support during the 2019 presidential election campaign, a possible violation of whistleblower rights, possibly undue influence in imposing sanctions on Belarus.
Current and former heads of the Prosecutor’s Office, Special Investigation Service, VSD, Heads of the Main Election Commission, officials, and other persons were interviewed on these issues.
VSD spokesperson T. Gailius told the commission that he suspected that his managers might have committed a disciplinary violation or even a crime when they commissioned an inspection of the environment of the then presidential candidate G. Nausėda and possibly passed the inspection results to third parties who do not have the right to work with classified information. That’s why T. Gailius said that he turned to politicians and became a speaker.
Intelligence representatives claimed to have checked the teams of all presidential candidates, the speaker himself said that only G. Nausėda’s surroundings were checked, and VSD deputy director Remigijus Bridikis confirmed to him that the lists were received from G. Nausėda himself. The president categorically denies that he asked the VSD to check his team.
Meanwhile, the Seimas commission announced that D. Jauniškis received information regarding G. Nausėda’s environment either from G. Nausėda himself, or the information was transferred on his behalf. The Commission points out that it does not have the data that VSD checks the teams of other candidates during the campaign.
In the book “The Speaker and the President” published at the beginning of 2023, part of the content of which is based on the stories of T. Gailius, questions are also raised regarding the transparency of the financing of the election campaign of G. Nausėdas.
The Seimas Commission claims that the VSD conducted an investigation into possible irregularities in the financing of G. Nausėda’s campaign, but did not provide this information to decision-makers and institutions.
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2024-03-30 11:42:57
