Revealed Communications Show Epstein and Summers as Confidantes

Numerous exchanges between adjudicated offender Jeffrey Epstein and ex- US Treasury Secretary Larry Summers were released this week, revealing the pair acted as trusted allies.

The messages, covering 2013 to early 2019, demonstrate the two men exchanging personal – and at times questionable – opinions on political matters and interpersonal dynamics.

I'm struggling 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 admission to Harvard,”|“I’m trying to|I am attempting to|I'm struggling to} understand why [the] American elite believe if u take the life of your baby by physical abuse and desertion it must be irrelevant to your acceptance to Harvard,”} Summers wrote to Epstein in a 2017 communication. “But hit on a few women 10 years ago and are unable to work at a network or think tank. KEEP CONFIDENTIAL THIS INSIGHT.”

During that period, Harvard University was wrestling with an enrollment discussion after a previously incarcerated woman’s admission to a PhD program. Summers, a ex- president of the university who lost his position amid a uproar after making sexist comments about female academics, added in the message 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 key player in liberal circles – a former treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the main engineers of Barack Obama’s approach to the economic downturn, and a stalwart voice in the left-leaning punditry. But doubts have remained about his association with Epstein, a former contact of Donald Trump. Epstein was alleged to have run a extensive sex trafficking of minors operation before his passing in custody in 2019 in New York City.

Following publication of a earlier set of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 report, a spokesperson for Summers stated that he “deeply regrets being in contact with Epstein after his guilty verdict”.

Democratic lawmakers made public emails from the Epstein estate this week that suggest Epstein was of the opinion Trump was had knowledge of conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In retaliation, Conservative lawmakers released a larger tranche of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.

These records show that Summers maintained amicable contact with the found guilty child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the last email exchange occurring only months before Epstein’s apprehension.

Trump stated on Truth Social on Friday that he would be instructing the Department of Justice and the FBI to investigate Epstein’s “role and relationship” with Summers, among other prominent Democratic figures and business leaders.

In the emails, Summers and Epstein converse on politics – notably Summers’s disdain for Trump – as well as the particulars of philanthropic social networking – and women. Summers, 70, confided in Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his advances toward an unnamed woman, and being turned down.

“she is clever. ensuring you atone for previous missteps,” Epstein replied 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 donated 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 found Epstein “did not have the scholarly credentials 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 admitted guilt to child sex offenses in 2008.

At that point Obama’s star was rising. Summers would later receive appointment as director of the White House National Economic Council 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 associated with 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 “above and beyond” of that received to anti-sex-trafficking organizations.