Revealed Communications Show Jeffrey Epstein and Summers as Close Associates

Multiple messages between found guilty offender Jeffrey Epstein and former US Treasury Secretary Larry Summers came to light this week, showing the pair acted as confidants.

Their correspondence, dating from 2013 to early 2019, demonstrate the two men exchanging private – and at times improper – opinions on political matters and personal connections.

I'm struggling to understand why [the] American elite think if u take the life of your baby by physical abuse and desertion it must be unimportant to your admission to Harvard,”|“I’m trying to|I am attempting to|I'm struggling to} understand why [the] American elite think if u kill your baby by violence and desertion it must be irrelevant to your acceptance to Harvard,”} Summers wrote to Epstein in a 2017 email. Yet hit on a few women 10 years ago and can’t work at a network or think tank. DO NOT SHARE THIS OBSERVATION.”

At that time, Harvard University was dealing with an enrollment controversy after a previously incarcerated woman’s enrollment to a PhD program. Summers, a one-time president of the university who lost his position amid a uproar after making discriminatory comments about female academics, added in the message to Epstein: I pointed out that half of the IQ in [the] world was possessed by women without stating they are more than 51 percent of population.”

Summers was previously a key player in liberal circles – a former treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the main architects of Barack Obama’s handling to the financial crisis, and a stalwart figure in the left-leaning punditry. But doubts have lingered about his connection with Epstein, a longtime contact of Donald Trump. Epstein was alleged to have run a broad child sex trafficking operation before his passing in prison in 2019 in New York City.

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

Democratic Party lawmakers released emails from the Epstein estate this week that suggest Epstein thought Trump was had knowledge of conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In response, Republican lawmakers issued a much bigger batch of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.

The released materials show that Summers continued friendly contact with the convicted child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the most recent email exchange taking place only months before Epstein’s arrest.

Trump wrote on Truth Social on Friday that he would be instructing the Department of Justice and the FBI to look into Epstein’s “participation and association” with Summers, among other prominent Democratic figures and industry figures.

In the emails, Summers and Epstein discuss politics – especially Summers’s disdain for Trump – as well as the particulars of philanthropic social networking – and women. Summers, 70, shared with Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his overtures toward an anonymous woman, and being turned down.

“shes smart. making you pay for past errors,” Epstein replied 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 reiterated his regret in a recent statement. “I harbor significant regrets in my lifetime,” he said. “As previously stated, my connection to Jeffrey Epstein represented a serious lapse in judgment.”

Summers was president of Harvard University from 2001 to 2006. Epstein donated more than $9m to Harvard and its associated programs between 1998 and 2008, and was named a visiting fellow to perform research. The university later concluded Epstein “lacked the academic qualifications visiting fellows usually possess and his application proposed a course of study Epstein was ill-equipped to pursue”.

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

By that time Obama’s profile was growing. Summers would ultimately win appointment as director of the White House National Economic Council from January 2009 until November 2010.

After Summers departed the White House, he began soliciting Epstein for non-profit advice for his wife, Elisa New, a Harvard professor developing a poetry project. Epstein and his foundations made charitable contributions to projects linked to Summers’s wife, and the two men met a dozen times between 2013 and 2016, often for dinner.

After media coverage about Epstein’s donations emerged, New’s charity made a donation “above and beyond” of that received to anti-sex-trafficking organizations.