Disclosed Communications Depict Epstein and Summers as Confidantes

A series of exchanges between convicted sex criminal Jeffrey Epstein and one-time US Treasury Secretary Larry Summers came to light this week, revealing the pair served as confidants.

Their correspondence, spanning 2013 to early 2019, demonstrate the two men exchanging private – and at times unseemly – perspectives on politics and interpersonal dynamics.

“I’m trying to figure why [the] American elite think if u kill your baby by violence and abandonment it must be unimportant to your acceptance to Harvard,”|“I’m trying to|I am attempting to|I'm struggling to} figure why [the] American elite feel 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 message. Yet hit on a few women 10 years ago and cannot work at a network or think tank. DO NOT REPEAT THIS IDEA.”

During that period, Harvard University was dealing with an admissions debate after a once incarcerated woman’s admission to a PhD program. Summers, a one-time president of the university who lost his position amid a controversy after making sexist comments about women in academia, went on to say 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 society.”

Summers was at one time a prominent figure in the Democratic Party circles – a former treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the primary architects of Barack Obama’s response to the economic downturn, and a steadfast figure in the liberal commentariat. But questions have persisted about his association with Epstein, a former connection of Donald Trump. Epstein was accused of a wide-ranging child sex trafficking operation before his passing in jail in 2019 in New York City.

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

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

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

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 association” with Summers, among other prominent liberal leaders and industry figures.

In the emails, Summers and Epstein converse on politics – particularly Summers’s dislike for Trump – as well as the details of philanthropic social networking – and women. Summers, 70, confided in Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his romantic gestures toward an unidentified woman, and being rebuffed.

“she's intelligent. holding you accountable for past mistakes,” Epstein responded in an exchange on 16 March. “ignore the daddy im going to go out with the motorcycle guy, you reacted well.. annoyed shows caring., no whining showed strentgh.”

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 contributed 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 determined Epstein “lacked the scholarly credentials visiting fellows typically possess and his application outlined 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 eventually 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 requesting Epstein for philanthropic advice for his wife, Elisa New, a Harvard professor developing a poetry project. Epstein and his foundations made charitable contributions to projects connected to Summers’s wife, and the two men got together 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-sex-trafficking organizations.