Slovak and EU diplomat Miroslav Lajčák resigned as Prime Minister Robert Fico’s foreign and security advisor after the publication of the latest round of the so-called Epstein files. 

The files appear to show Lajčák discussing arranging women for himself with the sentenced pedophile Jeffrey Epstein, who died while in custody in 2019. In 2018, Lajčák was also reported to have offered to set up a meeting between Fico and Donald Trump’s then aide and far right ideologue Steve Bannon.

Lajčák wrote that he was offering his resignation to Fico “not because I would commit something criminal or unethical”, but so the PM “does not carry political costs for something, which is not connected to his decisions”.

“I realise I am used as a tool for a political attack on the prime minister today,” Lajčák wrote in a statement shared by Slovak press agency TASR and other Slovak media on January 31.

Fico accepted the resignation and used the opportunity to describe the public outrage over the extent of Lajčák’s involvement in the Epstein files as “an attack against me”. He also praised Lajčák as “a great diplomat” for offering his resignation.

Lajčák has been under increased pressure from the opposition in Bratislava since January 30, after the revelations that in October 2018, while serving as the Slovak minister of foreign affairs, he reportedly asked Epstein to participate in his “games”.

In a private conversation shared by the BBC, Lajčák added that “I would take the ‘MI’ girl” to which Epstein replied in a text message "who wouldn’t”, adding "you can have them both, I am not possessive. And their sisters".

The conversation later includes parts where Epstein asks Lajčák to ask Russian chief diplomat Sergei Lavrov to get him a t-shirt with Lavrov and Russian ambassador to the UN Vitaly Churkin, who died in 2017.

"You get the tee shirt. Then you get the girls," Epstein wrote to Lajčák, who agreed, and the two then exchanged more comments about women.

The latest round of more than 3mn Epstein files, released by the US Justice Department on January 30, also includes an email by Lajčák in which he asks Epstein for help to get a female film producer shortlisted for 2017 Oscars.

Lajčák was also reported to have offered to set up a meeting between Fico and Bannon after Fico was forced to step down as PM amid mass demonstrations sparked by the murder of investigative journalist Ján Kuciak in 2018, Slovak online news outlet 360ka highlighted.   

“Btw, I have a person for him in Slovakia – my ex-PM Fico. He is out of government and looking for a new agenda. He would be happy to play Steve’s game. And he is good,” Lajčák reportedly texted Bannon. Lajčák denied to 360ka that he was setting up a meeting between Bannon and Fico.

Lajčák, who also served as president of the United Nations General Assembly in 2017-2018 and EU’s special representative to the Western Balkan region in 2020-2025, said he did not recall the communication “after such a time span”.

He stressed that “sexual services had never been offered to me, I never took part in any, I did not witness any” while he also “condemned the crimes of Jeffrey Epstein”, adding that “there would have been no communication if I knew the full scale of his deeds at the time”.

Michal Šimečka, chairman of the largest opposition party, centrist Progressive Slovakia, called on Lajčák to step down shortly after the release of the latest batch of the Epstein files, recalling Lajčák’s previous appearances in the files.

“As though it has not been enough, he [Lajčák] also says there [in the Epstein files] he loves Lavrov, and offers Robert Fico as suitable figure for goals of the American far right,” Šimečka wrote on his Facebook social media profile.

After Lajčák resigned, Šimečka also called on Fico to tell the public whether he had ever met Epstein or Bannon, noting that the “prime minister must clearly disprove, or bear responsibility for suspicions of influencing our domestic as well as foreign politics from similarly toxic persons”.     

Fico steered his Smer party deep into national conservative waters after 2018, then managed to return to power in 2023 on a radical nationalist and anti-Ukrainian ticket.

Fico and Trump have curried favour with each other ever since Trump’s return to the White House, and the Slovak strongman even visited Trump at his Mar-a-Lago residence last month. Both of them have attacked the EU for its green policies, and have been criticised for being pro-Russian.