Revealed Communications Illustrate Jeffrey Epstein and Summers as Confidantes

Numerous exchanges between found guilty offender Jeffrey Epstein and former US finance chief Larry Summers have emerged this week, showing the pair served as confidants.

The messages, spanning 2013 to early 2019, show the two men sharing private – and at times unseemly – opinions on public affairs and interpersonal dynamics.

“I’m trying to determine why [the] American elite think if u kill your baby by beating and neglect it must be irrelevant to your acceptance to Harvard,”|“I’m trying to|I am attempting to|I'm struggling to} figure why [the] American elite believe if u take the life of your baby by physical abuse and neglect it must be unimportant to your acceptance to Harvard,”} Summers stated to Epstein in a 2017 communication. Yet made advances toward a few women 10 years ago and can’t work at a network or think tank. DO NOT REPEAT THIS INSIGHT.”

During that period, Harvard University was wrestling with an enrollment discussion after a once incarcerated woman’s acceptance to a PhD program. Summers, a ex- president of the university who resigned amid a scandal after making discriminatory comments about female academics, added in the correspondence to Epstein: “I observed that half of the IQ in [the] world was possessed by women without stating they are more than 51 percent of the populace.”

Summers was once a key player in Democratic circles – a one-time treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the key designers of Barack Obama’s response to the market collapse, and a steadfast presence in the left-leaning punditry. But questions have lingered about his connection with Epstein, a long-standing contact of Donald Trump. Epstein was charged with a broad sex trafficking of minors operation before his demise in custody in 2019 in New York City.

Following publication of a earlier batch of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 article, a representative for Summers commented that he “profoundly regrets being in contact with Epstein after his guilty verdict”.

Democratic Party lawmakers made public emails from the Epstein estate this week that indicate Epstein believed Trump was aware of conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In reply, Conservative lawmakers released a much bigger collection of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.

These records show that Summers maintained amicable contact with the found guilty child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the last email exchange taking place only months before Epstein’s arrest.

Trump stated on Truth Social on Friday that he would be asking the Department of Justice and the FBI to examine Epstein’s “involvement and connection” with Summers, among other well-known liberal leaders and corporate executives.

In the emails, Summers and Epstein converse on politics – notably Summers’s contempt 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 romantic gestures toward an anonymous woman, and being rejected.

“she is clever. ensuring you atone for previous missteps,” Epstein wrote in an exchange on 16 March. “disregard the 'daddy' comment, I'm going out with the motorcycle guy, you handled it well.. irritation indicates concern., no complaining demonstrated strength.”

Summers restated his regret in a recent statement. “I have great regrets in my life,” he said. “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 contributed more than $9m to Harvard and its related programs between 1998 and 2008, and was appointed a visiting fellow to carry out research. The university later concluded Epstein “lacked the academic qualifications visiting fellows typically possess and his application suggested a course of study Epstein was ill-equipped to pursue”.

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

At that point Obama’s profile was growing. Summers would eventually receive 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 gifts to projects linked to Summers’s wife, and the two men saw each other a twelve times between 2013 and 2016, often for dinner.

After news about Epstein’s donations surfaced, New’s charity made a donation “in excess” of that received to anti-sex-trafficking organizations.