Uncovered Communications Show Jeffrey Epstein and Summers as Confidantes

Multiple messages between found guilty child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and ex- US treasury head Larry Summers were released this week, showing the pair served as trusted allies.

These exchanges, spanning 2013 to early 2019, show the two men discussing personal – and at times unseemly – perspectives on political matters and interpersonal dynamics.

“I’m trying to determine why [the] American elite think if u take the life of 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 murder your baby by physical abuse and abandonment it must be unimportant to your acceptance to Harvard,”} Summers wrote to Epstein in a 2017 message. “But hit on a few women 10 years ago and can’t work at a network or think tank. DO NOT REPEAT THIS INSIGHT.”

Back then, Harvard University was wrestling with an enrollment controversy after a formerly incarcerated woman’s enrollment to a PhD program. Summers, a one-time president of the university who lost his position amid a controversy after making discriminatory comments about women in academia, added in the message to Epstein: I pointed out that half of the IQ in [the] world was owned by women without stating they are more than 51 percent of population.”

Summers was previously a leading light in the Democratic Party circles – a ex- treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the primary engineers of Barack Obama’s approach to the financial crisis, and a steadfast figure in the progressive media. But concerns have lingered about his connection with Epstein, a former associate 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 the release of a earlier set of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 article, a agent for Summers commented that he “deeply regrets being in contact with Epstein after his legal finding”.

Left-leaning lawmakers disclosed emails from the Epstein estate this week that imply Epstein believed Trump was knew about conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In reply, Republican lawmakers published a larger collection of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.

These records show that Summers kept up friendly contact with the convicted child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the final email exchange happening 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 investigate Epstein’s “participation and association” with Summers, among other well-known Democrats and business leaders.

In the emails, Summers and Epstein discuss politics – particularly Summers’s contempt for Trump – as well as the aspects of philanthropic social networking – and women. Summers, 70, shared with Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his romantic gestures toward an unnamed woman, and being rebuffed.

“shes smart. making you pay for past errors,” Epstein responded 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 restated his regret in a recent statement. “I harbor significant regrets in my lifetime,” he commented. “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 gave more than $9m to Harvard and its related programs between 1998 and 2008, and was appointed a visiting fellow to carry out research. The university later found Epstein “did not have the academic qualifications visiting fellows normally 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.

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

After Summers exited the White House, he began soliciting Epstein for philanthropic advice for his wife, Elisa New, a Harvard professor working on a poetry project. Epstein and his foundations made philanthropic donations to projects linked to 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 “more than” of that received to anti-sex-trafficking organizations.