Revealed Communications Illustrate Jeffrey Epstein and Summers as Trusted Friends

Multiple exchanges between found guilty child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and one-time US Treasury Secretary Larry Summers were released this week, showing the pair served as confidants.

These exchanges, covering 2013 to early 2019, demonstrate the two men discussing private – and at times improper – opinions on politics and personal connections.

I'm struggling to figure why [the] American elite think if u take the life of your baby by physical abuse and abandonment it must be unimportant 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 kill your baby by physical abuse and neglect it must be irrelevant to your acceptance to Harvard,”} Summers emailed to Epstein in a 2017 email. Yet hit on a few women 10 years ago and are unable to work at a network or think tank. DO NOT REPEAT THIS OBSERVATION.”

At that time, Harvard University was dealing with an acceptance controversy after a once incarcerated woman’s admission to a PhD program. Summers, a one-time president of the university who stepped down 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 the populace.”

Summers was once a key player in the Democratic Party circles – a former treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the primary engineers of Barack Obama’s handling to the market collapse, and a steadfast voice in the liberal commentariat. But concerns have lingered about his connection with Epstein, a former connection of Donald Trump. Epstein was accused of a broad child sex trafficking operation before his demise in jail in 2019 in New York City.

Following disclosure of a earlier batch of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 report, a agent for Summers stated that he “is very sorry for being in contact with Epstein after his conviction”.

Left-leaning lawmakers released emails from the Epstein estate this week that indicate Epstein was of the opinion Trump was had knowledge of 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.

The released materials show that Summers maintained amicable contact with the found guilty child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the most recent email exchange taking place only months before Epstein’s detention.

Trump posted on Truth Social on Friday that he would be requesting the Department of Justice and the FBI to look into Epstein’s “role and connection” with Summers, among other well-known Democrats and business leaders.

In the emails, Summers and Epstein talk about politics – particularly 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 romantic gestures toward an unnamed woman, and being rejected.

“she is clever. ensuring you atone for previous missteps,” Epstein wrote 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 affirmed his regret in a recent statement. “I have great regrets in my life,” he wrote. “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 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 “was missing the academic qualifications visiting fellows typically possess and his application outlined a course of study Epstein was unqualified to pursue”.

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

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

After Summers departed the White House, he began asking Epstein for philanthropic advice for his wife, Elisa New, a Harvard professor pursuing a poetry project. Epstein and his foundations made philanthropic donations 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 came out, New’s charity made a donation “in excess” of that received to anti-exploitation organizations.