Uncovered Exchanges Show Jeffrey Epstein and Summers as Confidantes

A series of communications between adjudicated offender Jeffrey Epstein and former US Treasury Secretary Larry Summers were released this week, indicating the pair were close contacts.

The messages, dating from 2013 to early 2019, show the two men sharing personal – and at times unseemly – opinions on public affairs and relationships.

I'm struggling to understand why [the] American elite believe if u kill your baby by violence and desertion it must be unimportant to your entry to Harvard,”|“I’m trying to|I am attempting to|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 not a factor to your admission to Harvard,”} Summers wrote to Epstein in a 2017 message. However made advances toward a few women 10 years ago and can’t work at a network or think tank. DO NOT REPEAT THIS IDEA.”

During that period, Harvard University was grappling with an acceptance controversy after a formerly incarcerated woman’s enrollment to a PhD program. Summers, a one-time president of the university who stepped down amid a scandal after making discriminatory comments about women in academia, added in the correspondence to Epstein: I pointed out that half of the IQ in [the] world was owned by women without mentioning they are more than 51 percent of the populace.”

Summers was at one time a key player in Democratic circles – a former treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the key engineers of Barack Obama’s handling to the financial crisis, and a steadfast presence in the liberal commentariat. But doubts have persisted about his relationship with Epstein, a longtime contact of Donald Trump. Epstein was accused of a broad child sex trafficking operation before his death in prison in 2019 in New York City.

Following disclosure of a earlier set of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 piece, a representative for Summers commented that he “deeply regrets being in contact with Epstein after his guilty verdict”.

Left-leaning lawmakers made public emails from the Epstein estate this week that imply Epstein thought Trump was aware of conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In reply, Conservative lawmakers published a larger collection of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.

The released materials show that Summers kept up amicable contact with the found guilty child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the last email exchange taking place only months before Epstein’s apprehension.

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

In the emails, Summers and Epstein discuss politics – notably Summers’s contempt for Trump – as well as the particulars of charitable social networking – and women. Summers, 70, disclosed to Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his romantic gestures toward an unnamed woman, and being turned down.

“she's intelligent. holding you accountable for past mistakes,” 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 restated his sorrow in a recent statement. “There are many things I regret in my life,” he wrote. “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 affiliated programs between 1998 and 2008, and was named a visiting fellow to perform research. The university later found Epstein “lacked the educational background visiting fellows typically possess and his application proposed 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.

At that point Obama’s profile was growing. Summers would later secure appointment as director of the White House National Economic Council from January 2009 until November 2010.

After Summers exited the White House, he began requesting Epstein for charitable advice for his wife, Elisa New, a Harvard professor pursuing 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 “above and beyond” of that received to combatting sex trafficking organizations.