Disclosed Communications Illustrate Jeffrey Epstein and Summers as Confidantes

A series of exchanges between found guilty child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and one-time US finance chief Larry Summers have emerged this week, indicating the pair served as trusted allies.

The messages, spanning 2013 to early 2019, reveal the two men sharing private – and at times questionable – views on political matters and personal connections.

“I’m trying to understand why [the] American elite believe if u take the life of your baby by violence and neglect it must be irrelevant to your acceptance to Harvard,”|“I’m trying to|I am attempting to|I'm struggling to} understand why [the] American elite think if u take the life of your baby by violence and desertion it must be unimportant to your admission to Harvard,”} Summers stated to Epstein in a 2017 message. “But flirted with a few women 10 years ago and can’t work at a network or think tank. DO NOT SHARE THIS INSIGHT.”

Back then, Harvard University was grappling with an acceptance controversy after a previously incarcerated woman’s enrollment to a PhD program. Summers, a former president of the university who stepped down amid a scandal after making discriminatory comments about women in academia, added in the correspondence to Epstein: “I observed that half of the IQ in [the] world was possessed by women without mentioning they are more than 51 percent of the populace.”

Summers was once a prominent figure in the Democratic Party circles – a former treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the key architects of Barack Obama’s approach to the market collapse, and a stalwart figure in the progressive media. But concerns have persisted about his association with Epstein, a longtime connection of Donald Trump. Epstein was accused of a extensive child sex trafficking operation before his death in prison in 2019 in New York City.

Following publication of a previous batch of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 article, a representative for Summers commented that he “deeply regrets being in contact with Epstein after his conviction”.

Democratic Party lawmakers made public emails from the Epstein estate this week that imply Epstein believed Trump was aware of conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In response, Conservative lawmakers released a larger batch of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.

The documents show that Summers maintained friendly contact with the convicted child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the last email exchange occurring only months before Epstein’s arrest.

Trump posted on Truth Social on Friday that he would be requesting the Department of Justice and the FBI to look into Epstein’s “participation and relationship” with Summers, among other influential liberal leaders and industry figures.

In the emails, Summers and Epstein talk about politics – especially Summers’s dislike for Trump – as well as the aspects of charitable social networking – and women. Summers, 70, shared with Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his advances toward an unidentified woman, and being turned down.

“shes smart. making you pay for past errors,” 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 reiterated his remorse in a recent statement. “I harbor significant regrets in my lifetime,” 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 associated programs between 1998 and 2008, and was designated a visiting fellow to carry out research. The university later determined Epstein “was missing the scholarly credentials visiting fellows usually possess and his application outlined a course of study Epstein was ill-equipped to pursue”.

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

By then Obama’s career was advancing. Summers would eventually 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 charitable advice for his wife, Elisa New, a Harvard professor working on a poetry project. Epstein and his foundations made philanthropic donations to projects connected 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 “more than” of that received to anti-exploitation organizations.