Uncovered Communications Depict Jeffrey Epstein and Summers as Confidantes

Multiple messages between found guilty child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and former US finance chief Larry Summers came to light this week, revealing the pair were confidants.

These exchanges, covering 2013 to early 2019, reveal the two men discussing personal – and at times questionable – opinions on politics and interpersonal dynamics.

“I’m trying to determine why [the] American elite think if u murder your baby by beating and desertion it must be not a factor 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 take the life of your baby by violence and desertion it must be unimportant to your acceptance to Harvard,”} Summers wrote to Epstein in a 2017 message. Yet made advances toward a few women 10 years ago and can’t work at a network or think tank. KEEP CONFIDENTIAL THIS IDEA.”

Back then, Harvard University was dealing with an admissions debate after a previously incarcerated woman’s admission to a PhD program. Summers, a ex- president of the university who stepped down amid a uproar after making sexist comments about female academics, continued in the email to Epstein: “I observed that half of the IQ in [the] world was held by women without mentioning they are more than 51 percent of society.”

Summers was once a prominent figure in the Democratic Party circles – a former treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the main architects of Barack Obama’s response to the economic downturn, and a stalwart figure in the liberal commentariat. But concerns have persisted 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 death in prison in 2019 in New York City.

Following publication of a previous batch of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 article, a spokesperson for Summers stated that he “deeply regrets being in contact with Epstein after his guilty verdict”.

Left-leaning lawmakers made public emails from the Epstein estate this week that indicate Epstein thought Trump was had knowledge of conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In retaliation, Conservative lawmakers published a larger collection of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.

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

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

In the emails, Summers and Epstein talk about politics – especially Summers’s dislike for Trump – as well as the aspects of charitable social networking – and women. Summers, 70, confided in Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his overtures toward an unidentified woman, and being turned down.

“shes smart. making you pay for past errors,” 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 affirmed his regret in a recent statement. “There are many things I regret 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 contributed more than $9m to Harvard and its related programs between 1998 and 2008, and was designated a visiting fellow to perform research. The university later concluded Epstein “was missing the educational background visiting fellows usually possess and his application suggested a course of study Epstein was unqualified to pursue”.

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

By then Obama’s profile was growing. Summers would later receive appointment as director of the White House economic advisory body from January 2009 until November 2010.

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

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