Uncovered Exchanges Depict Jeffrey Epstein and Summers as Trusted Friends

A series of communications between found guilty child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and former US Treasury Secretary Larry Summers came to light this week, revealing the pair served as confidants.

These exchanges, dating from 2013 to early 2019, demonstrate the two men exchanging private – and at times questionable – views on public affairs and relationships.

I'm struggling to figure why [the] American elite believe if u kill your baby by violence and abandonment it must be irrelevant to your entry to Harvard,”|“I’m trying to|I am attempting to|I'm struggling to} determine why [the] American elite think if u kill your baby by physical abuse and abandonment it must be not a factor to your admission to Harvard,”} Summers stated to Epstein in a 2017 email. “But made advances toward a few women 10 years ago and can’t work at a network or think tank. KEEP CONFIDENTIAL THIS IDEA.”

At that time, Harvard University was grappling with an acceptance controversy after a once incarcerated woman’s enrollment to a PhD program. Summers, a former president of the university who stepped down amid a scandal after making sexist comments about women scholars, went on to say in the email to Epstein: “I observed that half of the IQ in [the] world was held by women without stating they are more than 51 percent of the populace.”

Summers was at one time a key player in liberal circles – a one-time treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the key engineers of Barack Obama’s response to the economic downturn, and a steadfast presence in the progressive media. But questions have lingered about his relationship with Epstein, a long-standing contact of Donald Trump. Epstein was charged with a extensive sex trafficking of minors operation before his death in prison in 2019 in New York City.

Following disclosure of a previous tranche of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 article, a representative for Summers commented that he “is very sorry for being in contact with Epstein after his conviction”.

Democratic lawmakers released 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 retaliation, Republican lawmakers published a more extensive tranche 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 final email exchange taking place only months before Epstein’s detention.

Trump wrote on Truth Social on Friday that he would be requesting the Department of Justice and the FBI to investigate Epstein’s “participation and connection” with Summers, among other well-known Democrats and industry figures.

In the emails, Summers and Epstein converse on politics – particularly Summers’s dislike for Trump – as well as the details of charitable social networking – and women. Summers, 70, disclosed to Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his romantic gestures toward an anonymous woman, and being turned down.

“she is clever. ensuring you atone for previous missteps,” Epstein wrote 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 restated his regret 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 contributed more than $9m to Harvard and its associated programs between 1998 and 2008, and was named a visiting fellow to carry out research. The university later concluded Epstein “did not have the academic qualifications visiting fellows typically possess and his application proposed a course of study Epstein was not prepared 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 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 requesting Epstein for philanthropic advice for his wife, Elisa New, a Harvard professor pursuing a poetry project. Epstein and his foundations made charitable contributions to projects associated with Summers’s wife, and the two men saw each other a multiple times between 2013 and 2016, often for dinner.

After media coverage about Epstein’s donations surfaced, New’s charity made a donation “in excess” of that received to anti-sex-trafficking organizations.