Revealed Exchanges Show Jeffrey Epstein and Summers as Confidantes

Numerous messages between convicted sex criminal Jeffrey Epstein and former US Treasury Secretary Larry Summers have emerged this week, indicating the pair were trusted allies.

Their correspondence, spanning 2013 to early 2019, show the two men sharing private – and at times improper – views on public affairs and relationships.

I'm struggling to understand why [the] American elite think if u murder your baby by beating and desertion 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 violence and abandonment it must be not a factor to your acceptance to Harvard,”} Summers emailed to Epstein in a 2017 email. “But hit on a few women 10 years ago and are unable to work at a network or think tank. KEEP CONFIDENTIAL THIS IDEA.”

During that period, Harvard University was wrestling with an admissions controversy 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 women in academia, went on to say in the correspondence to Epstein: “I observed that half of the IQ in [the] world was owned by women without mentioning they are more than 51 percent of society.”

Summers was previously a leading light in Democratic circles – a ex- treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the primary designers of Barack Obama’s handling to the market collapse, and a steadfast presence in the progressive media. But concerns have lingered about his connection with Epstein, a longtime contact of Donald Trump. Epstein was alleged to have run a broad exploitation operation before his demise in prison in 2019 in New York City.

Following publication of a prior batch 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 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, Conservative lawmakers published a much bigger collection of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.

The released materials show that Summers maintained friendly contact with the found guilty child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the final email exchange occurring only months before Epstein’s apprehension.

Trump stated on Truth Social on Friday that he would be requesting the Department of Justice and the FBI to investigate Epstein’s “role and relationship” with Summers, among other well-known liberal leaders and industry figures.

In the emails, Summers and Epstein talk about politics – especially Summers’s dislike for Trump – as well as the particulars of charitable social networking – and women. Summers, 70, disclosed to Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his overtures toward an anonymous woman, and being rebuffed.

“shes smart. making you pay for past errors,” 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. “There are many things I regret in my life,” he wrote. “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 donated more than $9m to Harvard and its related programs between 1998 and 2008, and was designated a visiting fellow to carry out research. The university later determined Epstein “did not have the scholarly credentials visiting fellows typically possess and his application suggested a course of study Epstein was unqualified to pursue”.

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

By then Obama’s star was rising. Summers would eventually win appointment as director of the White House economic advisory body from January 2009 until November 2010.

After Summers left 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 associated with Summers’s wife, and the two men met a multiple times between 2013 and 2016, often for dinner.

After news about Epstein’s donations emerged, New’s charity made a donation “more than” of that received to anti-sex-trafficking organizations.