Revealed Exchanges Illustrate Epstein and Summers as Close Associates

Multiple messages between adjudicated sex criminal Jeffrey Epstein and former US finance chief Larry Summers came to light this week, revealing the pair acted as trusted allies.

Their correspondence, dating from 2013 to early 2019, reveal the two men sharing personal – and at times unseemly – opinions on political matters and interpersonal dynamics.

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

At that time, Harvard University was wrestling with an admissions discussion after a once incarcerated woman’s admission to a PhD program. Summers, a former president of the university who lost his position amid a uproar after making sexist comments about female academics, added in the message to Epstein: I pointed out that half of the IQ in [the] world was owned by women without stating they are more than 51 percent of population.”

Summers was previously a prominent figure in liberal circles – a former treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the main architects of Barack Obama’s handling to the economic downturn, and a steadfast figure in the progressive media. But doubts have persisted about his association with Epstein, a long-standing connection of Donald Trump. Epstein was charged with a wide-ranging sex trafficking of minors operation before his death in custody in 2019 in New York City.

Following disclosure of a previous set of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 report, a representative for Summers said that he “profoundly regrets being in contact with Epstein after his guilty verdict”.

Left-leaning lawmakers disclosed emails from the Epstein estate this week that imply Epstein thought Trump was knew about conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In reply, Conservative lawmakers released a larger tranche of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.

The released materials show that Summers continued congenial contact with the found guilty 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 asking the Department of Justice and the FBI to look into Epstein’s “participation and connection” with Summers, among other prominent Democrats and industry figures.

In the emails, Summers and Epstein converse on politics – notably Summers’s dislike for Trump – as well as the details of non-profit social networking – and women. Summers, 70, shared with Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his overtures toward an anonymous woman, and being turned down.

“she is clever. ensuring you atone for previous missteps,” Epstein replied 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 sorrow in a recent statement. “There are many things I regret in my life,” he commented. “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 gave more than $9m to Harvard and its related programs between 1998 and 2008, and was designated a visiting fellow to conduct research. The university later determined Epstein “was missing the academic qualifications visiting fellows usually possess and his application proposed a course of study Epstein was ill-equipped to pursue”.

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

At that point Obama’s career was advancing. Summers would later win appointment as director of the White House economic advisory body from January 2009 until November 2010.

After Summers left the White House, he began soliciting Epstein for charitable advice for his wife, Elisa New, a Harvard professor pursuing a poetry project. Epstein and his foundations made gifts to projects connected to Summers’s wife, and the two men got together a dozen times between 2013 and 2016, often for dinner.

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