After resigning from his position as advisor to the Prime Minister of Slovakia, Miroslav Lajcak spoke for the first time on Slovak radio after his messages with sex offender Jeffrey Epstein were published.
After avoiding the media, only giving written statements, Lajcak once gave an interview to the public broadcaster "Rádio Slovensko".
"I honestly don't remember those messages," the Slovakian diplomat told the radio, referring to the exchanges involving the girls. "I can't confirm them, but I can't deny them either."
After reading the messages again, he added that he felt "like an idiot."
“But that doesn’t absolve me of responsibility,” he said. “I showed poor judgment and inappropriate communication. Those messages were nothing more than thoughtless acts of male ego — self-indulgent chatter between men.”
Lajcak said he went to New York in 2017 to take up a year-long post at the United Nations and was introduced to Jeffrey Epstein by a senior foreign diplomat. According to Lajcak, Epstein was widely known and met with numerous business and political figures from the US and abroad.
Lajcak said he saw no reason not to meet him, arguing that establishing contacts was part of his job.
“Why shouldn’t I, a guy from Slovakia, accept this?” he said. “He was a valuable contact.”
He said he later learned of Epstein's 2008 conviction for a sex offense, but noted that many influential figures continued to associate with him afterward. This, he said, led him to believe he had no problem doing the same.
"My relationship with him was about words, not deeds. Today I am paying the price for communicating with him and getting to know him," Lajčák said, condemning the crimes that came to light after Epstein's arrest in 2019.
He also confirmed that he had visited Epstein's apartment, but said other business and political figures were present. "There were no girls," he insisted. "That part of Epstein's life was beyond me. He didn't talk about it and I didn't ask."
He added: "My conscience is clear."
Lajčák also denied that former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon, who sought to unite European populists in 2018, had met with Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico, despite published messages suggesting a possible meeting.
The Slovak Prime Minister has not confirmed whether such a meeting ever took place.
"I don't like Lavrov," Lajcak said, acknowledging that former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov had once been his professional role models.
"I changed my view of Lavrov after he became the face and voice of the aggressor in Ukraine."
In one of the published texts, Lajcak wrote that he loved Lavrov. /Express/
edition
t7 live
