Revealed Exchanges Illustrate Jeffrey Epstein and Summers as Confidantes

Numerous communications between found guilty offender Jeffrey Epstein and ex- US treasury head Larry Summers have emerged this week, showing the pair acted as trusted allies.

Their correspondence, covering 2013 to early 2019, show the two men discussing intimate – and at times unseemly – opinions on politics and interpersonal dynamics.

“I’m trying to understand why [the] American elite feel if u take the life of your baby by violence and abandonment it must be not a factor to your entry to Harvard,”|“I’m trying to|I am attempting to|I'm struggling to} figure why [the] American elite feel if u murder your baby by beating and neglect it must be unimportant to your admission to Harvard,”} Summers emailed 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 OBSERVATION.”

During that period, Harvard University was dealing with an enrollment discussion after a previously incarcerated woman’s acceptance to a PhD program. Summers, a former president of the university who stepped down amid a uproar after making discriminatory comments about women in academia, added in the correspondence to Epstein: “I observed that half of the IQ in [the] world was owned by women without stating they are more than 51 percent of the populace.”

Summers was at one time a leading light in Democratic circles – a former treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the key engineers of Barack Obama’s approach to the financial crisis, and a steadfast voice in the liberal commentariat. But questions have remained about his association with Epstein, a former contact of Donald Trump. Epstein was charged with a wide-ranging exploitation operation before his passing in custody in 2019 in New York City.

Following the release of a prior tranche of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 article, a spokesperson for Summers said that he “is very sorry for being in contact with Epstein after his conviction”.

Democratic lawmakers disclosed emails from the Epstein estate this week that imply Epstein thought Trump was had knowledge of conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In retaliation, Republican lawmakers published a much bigger tranche 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 apprehension.

Trump wrote 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 converse on politics – notably Summers’s dislike for Trump – as well as the particulars of charitable social networking – and women. Summers, 70, shared with Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his overtures toward an unnamed woman, and being rejected.

“shes smart. making you pay for past errors,” 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 restated his regret in a recent statement. “There are many things I regret in my life,” he said. “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 affiliated programs between 1998 and 2008, and was designated a visiting fellow to perform research. The university later determined Epstein “did not have the scholarly credentials visiting fellows typically possess and his application outlined a course of study Epstein was ill-equipped to pursue”.

Harvard only discontinued accepting Epstein’s donations after he admitted guilt to child sex offenses in 2008.

At that point Obama’s profile was growing. Summers would later secure appointment as director of the White House economic advisory body 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 developing a poetry project. Epstein and his foundations made gifts to projects associated with Summers’s wife, and the two men got together a twelve times between 2013 and 2016, often for dinner.

After media coverage about Epstein’s donations emerged, New’s charity made a donation “more than” of that received to anti-exploitation organizations.