Uncovered Communications Depict Epstein and Summers as Trusted Friends

Numerous messages between found guilty child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and one-time US finance chief Larry Summers came to light this week, showing the pair were close contacts.

Their correspondence, dating from 2013 to early 2019, reveal the two men exchanging personal – and at times improper – views on public affairs and interpersonal dynamics.

“I’m trying to determine why [the] American elite feel if u kill your baby by violence and abandonment it must be unimportant to your admission to Harvard,”|“I’m trying to|I am attempting to|I'm struggling to} determine why [the] American elite believe if u take the life of your baby by beating and abandonment it must be unimportant to your acceptance to Harvard,”} Summers stated to Epstein in a 2017 communication. “But hit on a few women 10 years ago and are unable to work at a network or think tank. DO NOT REPEAT THIS INSIGHT.”

During that period, Harvard University was grappling with an admissions controversy after a once incarcerated woman’s admission to a PhD program. Summers, a former president of the university who resigned amid a scandal after making sexist comments about women in academia, continued in the message to Epstein: “I observed that half of the IQ in [the] world was possessed by women without stating they are more than 51 percent of population.”

Summers was once a key player in Democratic circles – a ex- treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the key engineers of Barack Obama’s response to the financial crisis, and a steadfast presence in the left-leaning punditry. But questions have persisted about his association with Epstein, a former associate of Donald Trump. Epstein was charged with a broad sex trafficking of minors operation before his passing in custody in 2019 in New York City.

Following the release of a previous tranche of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 report, a representative for Summers stated that he “deeply regrets being in contact with Epstein after his guilty verdict”.

Democratic lawmakers made public emails from the Epstein estate this week that suggest Epstein was of the opinion Trump was knew about conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In reply, GOP lawmakers published a larger collection of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.

The documents show that Summers continued congenial contact with the adjudicated child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the most recent email exchange occurring only months before Epstein’s detention.

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

In the emails, Summers and Epstein discuss politics – particularly Summers’s contempt for Trump – as well as the particulars of non-profit social networking – and women. Summers, 70, confided in Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his advances toward an unidentified woman, and being rebuffed.

“she is clever. ensuring you atone for previous missteps,” Epstein wrote in an exchange on 16 March. “overlook the 'daddy' remark, I'm dating the motorcycle guy, you responded appropriately.. frustration signals affection., no protests revealed fortitude.”

Summers affirmed his regret in a recent statement. “I harbor significant regrets in my lifetime,” 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 associated programs between 1998 and 2008, and was appointed a visiting fellow to carry out research. The university later found Epstein “lacked the scholarly credentials visiting fellows typically possess and his application outlined a course of study Epstein was unqualified to pursue”.

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

At that point Obama’s profile was growing. Summers would eventually receive appointment as director of the White House economic advisory body from January 2009 until November 2010.

After Summers exited the White House, he began requesting Epstein for non-profit advice for his wife, Elisa New, a Harvard professor developing a poetry project. Epstein and his foundations made gifts to projects linked 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 came out, New’s charity made a donation “in excess” of that received to combatting sex trafficking organizations.