A senior advisor to President Sergio Mattarella has denied claims that he plotted against Premier Giorgia Meloni’s government, saying remarks he made during a private conversation were exaggerated to target the head of State.
The dispute began after La Verità published a report based on comments Francesco Saverio Garofani allegedly made in a restaurant. Garofani, a former Democratic Party (PD) lawmaker and now an advisor to the president’s Supreme Defence Council, said the report distorted a casual chat among friends.
“I am very bitter, both for me and for my family,” he told Corriere della Sera on Wednesday. “It was a chat among friends. I am frightened by the violence of the attack, and what hurts is the impression that I am being used to strike the president.”
On Tuesday, Meloni’s Brothers of Italy (FdI) asked President Mattarella to deny the newspaper’s accusations. The president’s office replied with “astonishment”, saying it was surprising that FdI’s Lower House whip, Galeazzo Bignami, had given credence to “yet another attack on the Presidency of the Republic that borders on the ridiculous”.
Government officials later stressed that relations between Meloni and Mattarella remain solid. Giovanbattista Fazzolari, cabinet secretary responsible for implementing the government programme, said neither FdI nor Palazzo Chigi had ever questioned the president’s institutional loyalty.
He said cooperation with Mattarella had always been “total”, citing collaboration on foreign policy issues from Ukraine to the Middle East.
Fazzolari added that Bignami had not criticised the Quirinale but had merely suggested that Garofani should deny the statements attributed to him. Such a denial, he said, “would have nipped any controversy in the bud”.
