Revealed Communications Illustrate Jeffrey Epstein and Summers as Close Associates

Numerous communications between convicted child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and one-time US treasury head Larry Summers have emerged this week, showing the pair acted as confidants.

These exchanges, spanning 2013 to early 2019, show the two men sharing private – and at times unseemly – views on politics and interpersonal dynamics.

“I’m trying to understand why [the] American elite feel if u kill your baby by physical abuse and abandonment it must be not a factor to your acceptance to Harvard,”|“I’m trying to|I am attempting to|I'm struggling to} understand why [the] American elite feel if u take the life of your baby by physical abuse and abandonment it must be not a factor to your admission to Harvard,”} Summers wrote to Epstein in a 2017 message. Yet made advances toward a few women 10 years ago and cannot work at a network or think tank. KEEP CONFIDENTIAL THIS INSIGHT.”

Back then, Harvard University was grappling with an acceptance discussion after a formerly incarcerated woman’s acceptance to a PhD program. Summers, a one-time president of the university who resigned amid a scandal after making sexist comments about female academics, went on to say in the message to Epstein: “I observed that half of the IQ in [the] world was held by women without mentioning they are more than 51 percent of society.”

Summers was at one time a key player in the Democratic Party circles – a one-time treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the main architects of Barack Obama’s approach to the market collapse, and a stalwart voice in the liberal commentariat. But doubts have remained about his connection with Epstein, a former contact of Donald Trump. Epstein was accused of a broad child sex trafficking operation before his passing in jail in 2019 in New York City.

Following disclosure of a previous batch of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 article, a agent for Summers said that he “deeply regrets being in contact with Epstein after his legal finding”.

Democratic lawmakers disclosed 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 response, Republican lawmakers released a larger collection of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.

The released materials show that Summers maintained amicable contact with the adjudicated child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the last email exchange happening only months before Epstein’s apprehension.

Trump wrote on Truth Social on Friday that he would be instructing the Department of Justice and the FBI to look into Epstein’s “role and association” with Summers, among other prominent liberal leaders and business leaders.

In the emails, Summers and Epstein discuss politics – notably Summers’s contempt for Trump – as well as the particulars of philanthropic social networking – and women. Summers, 70, confided in Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his overtures toward an anonymous woman, and being rejected.

“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 affirmed his sorrow in a recent statement. “I have great regrets in my life,” he commented. “I’ve expressed this previously: my relationship with Jeffrey Epstein was a grave mistake.”

Summers was president of Harvard University from 2001 to 2006. Epstein gave 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 concluded Epstein “did not have the academic qualifications visiting fellows normally possess and his application suggested 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 career was advancing. Summers would later secure appointment as director of the White House National Economic Council from January 2009 until November 2010.

After Summers departed the White House, he began asking Epstein for non-profit advice for his wife, Elisa New, a Harvard professor developing a poetry project. Epstein and his foundations made charitable contributions to projects associated with Summers’s wife, and the two men got together a multiple times between 2013 and 2016, often for dinner.

After news about Epstein’s donations came out, New’s charity made a donation “above and beyond” of that received to anti-sex-trafficking organizations.