Uncovered Communications Depict Epstein and Summers as Confidantes

A series of exchanges between found guilty offender Jeffrey Epstein and former US Treasury Secretary Larry Summers came to light this week, indicating the pair served as confidants.

These exchanges, covering 2013 to early 2019, show the two men discussing intimate – and at times questionable – views on politics and personal connections.

“I’m trying to understand why [the] American elite feel if u take the life of your baby by violence and desertion it must be unimportant to your admission to Harvard,”|“I’m trying to|I am attempting to|I'm struggling to} determine why [the] American elite feel if u murder your baby by beating and abandonment it must be irrelevant to your admission to Harvard,”} Summers stated to Epstein in a 2017 email. Yet flirted with a few women 10 years ago and cannot work at a network or think tank. DO NOT SHARE THIS IDEA.”

During that period, Harvard University was grappling with an acceptance discussion after a previously incarcerated woman’s acceptance 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, went on to say in the email 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 at one time a key player in the Democratic Party circles – a one-time treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the key architects of Barack Obama’s response to the financial crisis, and a steadfast voice in the liberal commentariat. But doubts have remained about his relationship with Epstein, a former contact of Donald Trump. Epstein was accused of a wide-ranging child sex trafficking operation before his passing in custody in 2019 in New York City.

Following publication of a earlier tranche of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 piece, a representative for Summers stated that he “is very sorry for being in contact with Epstein after his legal finding”.

Democratic lawmakers disclosed emails from the Epstein estate this week that suggest Epstein thought Trump was aware of conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In retaliation, Republican lawmakers published a more extensive tranche of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.

The released materials show that Summers continued congenial contact with the convicted child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the final email exchange taking place only months before Epstein’s arrest.

Trump stated on Truth Social on Friday that he would be instructing the Department of Justice and the FBI to examine Epstein’s “participation and relationship” with Summers, among other well-known Democratic figures and industry figures.

In the emails, Summers and Epstein converse on politics – especially Summers’s disdain for Trump – as well as the aspects of philanthropic social networking – and women. Summers, 70, shared with Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his advances toward an anonymous woman, and being turned down.

“she's intelligent. holding you accountable for past mistakes,” 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 reiterated his remorse in a recent statement. “There are many things I regret in my life,” he wrote. “As previously stated, my connection to Jeffrey Epstein represented a serious lapse in judgment.”

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 named a visiting fellow to perform research. The university later concluded Epstein “lacked the scholarly credentials visiting fellows usually possess and his application outlined a course of study Epstein was unqualified to pursue”.

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

By that time Obama’s career was advancing. Summers would ultimately win 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 pursuing a poetry project. Epstein and his foundations made gifts to projects linked to Summers’s wife, and the two men saw each other a dozen times between 2013 and 2016, often for dinner.

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