Revealed Communications Depict Epstein and Summers as Close Associates

Numerous exchanges between found guilty offender Jeffrey Epstein and former US Treasury Secretary Larry Summers came to light this week, showing the pair acted as confidants.

The messages, spanning 2013 to early 2019, reveal the two men discussing personal – and at times unseemly – perspectives on politics and relationships.

“I’m trying to determine why [the] American elite think if u kill your baby by beating and desertion it must be not a factor to your acceptance 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 beating and desertion it must be irrelevant to your admission to Harvard,”} Summers emailed 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. KEEP CONFIDENTIAL THIS OBSERVATION.”

At that time, Harvard University was wrestling with an acceptance debate after a formerly incarcerated woman’s admission to a PhD program. Summers, a former president of the university who lost his position amid a uproar after making sexist comments about female academics, added 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 leading light in the Democratic Party circles – a one-time treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the key architects of Barack Obama’s approach to the market collapse, and a steadfast figure in the left-leaning punditry. But doubts have remained about his association with Epstein, a long-standing associate of Donald Trump. Epstein was alleged to have run a extensive sex trafficking of minors operation before his passing in jail in 2019 in New York City.

Following the release of a prior tranche of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 article, a agent for Summers stated 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 suggest Epstein believed Trump was had knowledge of conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In reply, GOP lawmakers released a larger collection of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.

These records show that Summers continued friendly 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 instructing the Department of Justice and the FBI to examine Epstein’s “role and connection” with Summers, among other influential Democratic figures and business leaders.

In the emails, Summers and Epstein converse on politics – particularly Summers’s disdain for Trump – as well as the particulars of charitable social networking – and women. Summers, 70, shared with Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his advances toward an unnamed woman, and being rebuffed.

“she's intelligent. holding you accountable for past mistakes,” 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. “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 affiliated 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 usually possess and his application outlined a course of study Epstein was not prepared to pursue”.

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

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

After Summers exited the White House, he began asking Epstein for charitable advice for his wife, Elisa New, a Harvard professor developing a poetry project. Epstein and his foundations made gifts to projects linked to Summers’s wife, and the two men saw each other a dozen times between 2013 and 2016, often for dinner.

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