Revealed Exchanges Depict Epstein and Summers as Confidantes

Numerous exchanges between convicted offender Jeffrey Epstein and former US treasury head Larry Summers have emerged this week, showing the pair served as close contacts.

These exchanges, spanning 2013 to early 2019, demonstrate the two men sharing private – and at times questionable – opinions on political matters and relationships.

I'm struggling to figure why [the] American elite think if u kill your baby by violence and desertion it must be irrelevant to your entry to Harvard,”|“I’m trying to|I am attempting to|I'm struggling to} figure why [the] American elite think if u murder your baby by violence and abandonment it must be unimportant to your admission to Harvard,”} Summers emailed to Epstein in a 2017 communication. Yet hit on 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 wrestling with an acceptance discussion after a formerly incarcerated woman’s admission to a PhD program. Summers, a former president of the university who lost his position amid a controversy after making gender-biased comments about women scholars, went on to say in the message to Epstein: I noted that half of the IQ in [the] world was possessed by women without stating they are more than 51 percent of society.”

Summers was once a prominent figure in liberal circles – a ex- treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the main designers of Barack Obama’s handling to the financial crisis, and a steadfast voice in the left-leaning punditry. But concerns have persisted about his association with Epstein, a former associate of Donald Trump. Epstein was charged with a extensive sex trafficking of minors operation before his passing in jail in 2019 in New York City.

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

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

These records show that Summers maintained amicable contact with the convicted child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the most recent email exchange occurring only months before Epstein’s arrest.

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

In the emails, Summers and Epstein talk about politics – especially Summers’s contempt for Trump – as well as the particulars of charitable social networking – and women. Summers, 70, confided in Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his overtures toward an unidentified woman, and being turned down.

“she is clever. ensuring you atone for previous missteps,” Epstein wrote 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 affirmed his regret in a recent statement. “There are many things I regret 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 gave more than $9m to Harvard and its related programs between 1998 and 2008, and was named a visiting fellow to perform research. The university later determined Epstein “was missing the educational background visiting fellows normally possess and his application proposed a course of study Epstein was unqualified to pursue”.

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

By then Obama’s profile was growing. Summers would later secure appointment as director of the White House NEC from January 2009 until November 2010.

After Summers departed 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 gifts to projects associated with Summers’s wife, and the two men saw each other a twelve times between 2013 and 2016, often for dinner.

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