Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico’s national security adviser, who resigned on Saturday over his messages to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, said he feels like a “fool” after reading them again.
“When I read those messages today, I feel like a fool. It was a private conversation, let’s be honest, who would be happy if the whole nation were reading their messages? At the very least, I exercised poor judgment,” Miroslav Lajčák, who served as Slovak foreign minister in multiple Fico governments between 2009 and 2020, told Radio Slovakia on Monday evening.
In the newly released files, Epstein bantered with Lajčák about women while discussing Lajčák’s meetings with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. The exchanges also show Lajčák suggested a meeting between Fico and Trump’s former chief strategist Steve Bannon, which he refuted in the radio session.
“This meeting did not happen … nor did I organize it,” Lajčák said.
Lajčák denied any wrongdoing but subsequently resigned, saying he wanted to prevent political blowback on Prime Minister Robert Fico. He went on to say that he “does not recall and therefore cannot confirm or deny the authenticity of the texts.”
According to Lajčák, Epstein was a well-known figure accepted among high-profile politicians, and he looked at him as a “valuable contact that could open a lot of doors.”
“But that does not absolve me of responsibility,” he said. “I showed poor judgement and inappropriate communication. Those messages were nothing more than foolish male egos in action — self-satisfied male banter,” he added, refering to conversation about women. Lajčák added that his communication with Epstein was limited to words, not actions.
“There were no girls … the fact that someone is communicating with a sexual predator does not make him a sexual predator,” he said, condemning the crimes that came to light after Epstein’s arrest in 2019.
The messages were included in Friday’s release by the U.S. Justice Department of investigative materials related to Epstein.