Revealed Communications Depict Epstein and Summers as Trusted Friends

Multiple messages between convicted child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and one-time US finance chief Larry Summers have emerged this week, indicating the pair acted as close contacts.

The messages, covering 2013 to early 2019, demonstrate the two men sharing private – and at times improper – perspectives on public affairs and relationships.

“I’m trying to figure why [the] American elite think if u kill your baby by violence 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} determine why [the] American elite feel if u kill your baby by physical abuse and neglect it must be unimportant to your admission to Harvard,”} Summers stated to Epstein in a 2017 message. Yet made advances toward a few women 10 years ago and are unable to work at a network or think tank. DO NOT REPEAT THIS INSIGHT.”

At that time, Harvard University was wrestling with an enrollment controversy after a once incarcerated woman’s enrollment to a PhD program. Summers, a ex- president of the university who stepped down amid a controversy after making sexist comments about women in academia, continued in the correspondence to Epstein: I noted that half of the IQ in [the] world was held by women without noting they are more than 51 percent of society.”

Summers was previously a leading light in Democratic circles – a one-time treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the primary designers of Barack Obama’s response to the financial crisis, and a committed figure in the liberal commentariat. But questions have persisted about his connection with Epstein, a former connection of Donald Trump. Epstein was alleged to have run a extensive child sex trafficking operation before his passing in custody in 2019 in New York City.

Following the release of a prior set of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 piece, a agent for Summers stated that he “deeply regrets being in contact with Epstein after his guilty verdict”.

Democratic Party lawmakers disclosed emails from the Epstein estate this week that imply Epstein believed Trump was had knowledge of conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In reply, GOP lawmakers published a much bigger batch of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.

The documents show that Summers kept up friendly contact with the convicted child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the final email exchange occurring only months before Epstein’s arrest.

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

In the emails, Summers and Epstein discuss politics – notably Summers’s dislike for Trump – as well as the aspects of philanthropic social networking – and women. Summers, 70, disclosed to 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. “disregard the 'daddy' comment, I'm going out with the motorcycle guy, you handled it well.. irritation indicates concern., no complaining demonstrated strength.”

Summers restated his sorrow in a recent statement. “I harbor significant regrets in my lifetime,” he wrote. “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 gave 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 “did not have the academic qualifications visiting fellows normally possess and his application proposed a course of study Epstein was unqualified to pursue”.

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

By then Obama’s star was rising. Summers would later secure appointment as director of the White House NEC from January 2009 until November 2010.

After Summers departed the White House, he began asking Epstein for philanthropic advice for his wife, Elisa New, a Harvard professor developing a poetry project. Epstein and his foundations made gifts to projects associated with Summers’s wife, and the two men got together a multiple times between 2013 and 2016, often for dinner.

After news about Epstein’s donations surfaced, New’s charity made a donation “more than” of that received to combatting sex trafficking organizations.