Revealed Exchanges Show Epstein and Summers as Close Associates

Multiple communications between adjudicated child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and one-time US finance chief Larry Summers have emerged this week, revealing the pair served as confidants.

The messages, dating from 2013 to early 2019, show the two men discussing intimate – and at times questionable – views on political matters and relationships.

I am attempting to understand why [the] American elite feel if u take the life of your baby by physical abuse and neglect it must be not a factor to your entry to Harvard,”|“I’m trying to|I am attempting to|I'm struggling to} figure why [the] American elite think if u take the life of your baby by beating and desertion it must be unimportant to your entry to Harvard,”} Summers wrote to Epstein in a 2017 communication. “But hit on a few women 10 years ago and can’t work at a network or think tank. DO NOT SHARE THIS INSIGHT.”

During that period, Harvard University was wrestling with an admissions controversy after a once incarcerated woman’s acceptance to a PhD program. Summers, a ex- president of the university who stepped down amid a uproar after making sexist comments about women scholars, continued in the correspondence to Epstein: I pointed out that half of the IQ in [the] world was held by women without stating they are more than 51 percent of the populace.”

Summers was previously a leading light in Democratic circles – a ex- treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the main architects of Barack Obama’s approach to the economic downturn, and a stalwart voice in the liberal commentariat. But doubts have persisted about his association with Epstein, a former connection of Donald Trump. Epstein was accused of a extensive child sex trafficking operation before his death in jail in 2019 in New York City.

Following the release of a earlier tranche of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 report, a agent for Summers stated that he “is very sorry for being in contact with Epstein after his guilty verdict”.

Democratic lawmakers disclosed emails from the Epstein estate this week that suggest Epstein thought Trump was aware of conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In retaliation, Republican lawmakers issued a much bigger tranche of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.

These records show that Summers maintained amicable contact with the adjudicated child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the most recent email exchange happening only months before Epstein’s arrest.

Trump wrote on Truth Social on Friday that he would be requesting the Department of Justice and the FBI to look into Epstein’s “participation and connection” with Summers, among other influential Democrats and corporate executives.

In the emails, Summers and Epstein converse on politics – particularly Summers’s disdain for Trump – as well as the particulars of non-profit social networking – and women. Summers, 70, shared with Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his overtures toward an anonymous woman, and being rebuffed.

“shes smart. making you pay for past errors,” Epstein responded in an exchange on 16 March. “overlook the 'daddy' remark, I'm dating the motorcycle guy, you responded appropriately.. frustration signals affection., no protests revealed fortitude.”

Summers restated his sorrow in a recent statement. “I have great regrets in my life,” he wrote. “As I have said before, my association with Jeffrey Epstein was a major error of judgement.”

Summers was president of Harvard University from 2001 to 2006. Epstein gave more than $9m to Harvard and its affiliated programs between 1998 and 2008, and was designated a visiting fellow to perform research. The university later determined Epstein “was missing the academic qualifications visiting fellows normally possess and his application outlined a course of study Epstein was unqualified to pursue”.

Harvard only discontinued accepting Epstein’s donations after he confessed to child sex offenses in 2008.

By then Obama’s profile was growing. Summers would ultimately secure appointment as director of the White House economic advisory body from January 2009 until November 2010.

After Summers departed the White House, he began soliciting Epstein for philanthropic advice for his wife, Elisa New, a Harvard professor working on a poetry project. Epstein and his foundations made philanthropic donations to projects connected to Summers’s wife, and the two men saw each other a dozen times between 2013 and 2016, often for dinner.

After reporting about Epstein’s donations surfaced, New’s charity made a donation “more than” of that received to anti-exploitation organizations.