Revealed Communications Show Epstein and Summers as Trusted Friends

Multiple exchanges between found guilty child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and ex- US treasury head Larry Summers have emerged this week, showing the pair served as close contacts.

The messages, covering 2013 to early 2019, reveal the two men discussing private – and at times unseemly – views on public affairs and relationships.

I'm struggling to figure why [the] American elite believe if u kill your baby by beating and neglect it must be unimportant to your entry to Harvard,”|“I’m trying to|I am attempting to|I'm struggling to} understand why [the] American elite think if u kill your baby by physical abuse and neglect it must be irrelevant to your entry to Harvard,”} Summers emailed to Epstein in a 2017 communication. Yet flirted with a few women 10 years ago and cannot work at a network or think tank. DO NOT SHARE THIS OBSERVATION.”

Back then, Harvard University was wrestling with an acceptance controversy after a previously incarcerated woman’s admission 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, continued in the correspondence to Epstein: “I observed that half of the IQ in [the] world was possessed by women without stating they are more than 51 percent of the populace.”

Summers was previously a leading light in liberal circles – a ex- treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the main engineers of Barack Obama’s approach to the market collapse, and a steadfast presence in the left-leaning punditry. But questions have remained about his relationship with Epstein, a former connection of Donald Trump. Epstein was accused of a extensive child sex trafficking operation before his passing in jail in 2019 in New York City.

Following disclosure of a prior batch of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 report, a spokesperson for Summers said that he “profoundly regrets being in contact with Epstein after his legal finding”.

Democratic lawmakers released emails from the Epstein estate this week that suggest Epstein believed Trump was knew about conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In response, Conservative lawmakers released a much bigger batch of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.

The released materials show that Summers kept up friendly contact with the found guilty child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the final email exchange occurring only months before Epstein’s detention.

Trump posted on Truth Social on Friday that he would be asking the Department of Justice and the FBI to investigate Epstein’s “participation and association” with Summers, among other well-known Democratic figures and corporate executives.

In the emails, Summers and Epstein discuss politics – notably Summers’s disdain for Trump – as well as the details of philanthropic social networking – and women. Summers, 70, confided in 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. “ignore the daddy im going to go out with the motorcycle guy, you reacted well.. annoyed shows caring., no whining showed strentgh.”

Summers affirmed his regret in a recent statement. “I have great regrets in my life,” he commented. “As I have said before, my association with Jeffrey Epstein was a major error of judgement.”

Summers was president of Harvard University from 2001 to 2006. Epstein donated more than $9m to Harvard and its related programs between 1998 and 2008, and was named a visiting fellow to perform research. The university later concluded Epstein “did not have the academic qualifications visiting fellows normally possess and his application outlined a course of study Epstein was ill-equipped to pursue”.

Harvard only discontinued 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 left 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 charitable contributions to projects connected to Summers’s wife, and the two men got together a twelve 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 combatting sex trafficking organizations.