Revealed Communications Show Jeffrey Epstein and Summers as Confidantes

Multiple messages between convicted child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and ex- US Treasury Secretary Larry Summers were released this week, revealing the pair were close contacts.

These exchanges, covering 2013 to early 2019, show the two men exchanging private – and at times questionable – opinions on politics and interpersonal dynamics.

“I’m trying to understand why [the] American elite think if u kill your baby by physical abuse 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 think if u kill your baby by physical abuse and abandonment it must be unimportant to your entry to Harvard,”} Summers stated to Epstein in a 2017 email. “But flirted with a few women 10 years ago and are unable to work at a network or think tank. DO NOT SHARE THIS IDEA.”

During that period, Harvard University was dealing with an admissions debate after a previously incarcerated woman’s enrollment to a PhD program. Summers, a former president of the university who lost his position amid a scandal after making gender-biased comments about female academics, went on to say in the message to Epstein: I pointed out that half of the IQ in [the] world was possessed by women without mentioning they are more than 51 percent of the populace.”

Summers was at one time a leading light in Democratic circles – a ex- treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the primary engineers of Barack Obama’s approach to the market collapse, and a committed presence in the left-leaning punditry. But questions have persisted about his association with Epstein, a former associate of Donald Trump. Epstein was alleged to have run a wide-ranging sex trafficking of minors operation before his passing in custody in 2019 in New York City.

Following publication of a earlier set of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 piece, a agent for Summers stated that he “deeply regrets being in contact with Epstein after his conviction”.

Democratic Party lawmakers disclosed emails from the Epstein estate this week that suggest Epstein thought Trump was knew about conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In response, GOP lawmakers published a much bigger tranche of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.

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

Trump wrote on Truth Social on Friday that he would be asking the Department of Justice and the FBI to investigate Epstein’s “involvement and relationship” with Summers, among other prominent Democratic figures and corporate executives.

In the emails, Summers and Epstein converse on politics – especially Summers’s disdain for Trump – as well as the aspects of charitable social networking – and women. Summers, 70, disclosed to Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his overtures toward an unnamed 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 remorse 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 contributed more than $9m to Harvard and its related programs between 1998 and 2008, and was designated 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 not prepared to pursue”.

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

At that point Obama’s star was rising. Summers would ultimately win appointment as director of the White House NEC from January 2009 until November 2010.

After Summers exited the White House, he began asking Epstein for charitable advice for his wife, Elisa New, a Harvard professor pursuing a poetry project. Epstein and his foundations made charitable contributions to projects connected to Summers’s wife, and the two men met a dozen times between 2013 and 2016, often for dinner.

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