Disclosed Exchanges Illustrate Jeffrey Epstein and Summers as Confidantes

Numerous messages between found guilty sex criminal Jeffrey Epstein and one-time US treasury head Larry Summers have emerged this week, revealing the pair served as close contacts.

These exchanges, spanning 2013 to early 2019, show the two men exchanging personal – and at times questionable – views on political matters and interpersonal dynamics.

I am attempting to figure why [the] American elite feel if u murder your baby by physical abuse and abandonment 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 murder your baby by violence and abandonment it must be irrelevant to your admission to Harvard,”} Summers wrote to Epstein in a 2017 email. “But hit on 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 grappling with an admissions discussion after a formerly incarcerated woman’s admission to a PhD program. Summers, a ex- president of the university who resigned amid a controversy after making discriminatory comments about women scholars, continued in the correspondence to Epstein: I pointed out that half of the IQ in [the] world was possessed by women without stating they are more than 51 percent of population.”

Summers was once a leading light in liberal circles – a one-time treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the primary architects of Barack Obama’s response to the financial crisis, and a committed voice in the left-leaning punditry. But doubts have remained about his relationship with Epstein, a former connection of Donald Trump. Epstein was accused of a broad 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 disclosed emails from the Epstein estate this week that suggest Epstein was of the opinion Trump was knew about conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In retaliation, Republican lawmakers released a much bigger batch of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.

The documents show that Summers kept up congenial contact with the adjudicated 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 examine Epstein’s “participation and connection” with Summers, among other influential Democrats and industry figures.

In the emails, Summers and Epstein talk about politics – especially Summers’s disdain for Trump – as well as the aspects of philanthropic social networking – and women. Summers, 70, shared with Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his romantic gestures toward an unidentified woman, and being rebuffed.

“she's intelligent. holding you accountable for past mistakes,” 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 restated his regret in a recent statement. “I have great regrets in my life,” he wrote. “As previously stated, my connection to Jeffrey Epstein represented a serious lapse in judgment.”

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 found Epstein “was missing the academic qualifications visiting fellows usually possess and his application suggested a course of study Epstein was ill-equipped to pursue”.

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

By that time Obama’s star was rising. Summers would eventually secure appointment as director of the White House economic advisory body from January 2009 until November 2010.

After Summers exited the White House, he began soliciting Epstein for philanthropic advice for his wife, Elisa New, a Harvard professor pursuing a poetry project. Epstein and his foundations made gifts to projects linked 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.