Revealed Exchanges Depict Jeffrey Epstein and Summers as Trusted Friends

Multiple exchanges between found guilty child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and former US Treasury Secretary Larry Summers were released this week, revealing the pair acted as close contacts.

Their correspondence, covering 2013 to early 2019, show the two men sharing private – and at times unseemly – opinions on political matters and personal connections.

I'm struggling to figure why [the] American elite feel if u kill your baby by physical abuse and neglect it must be not a factor to your acceptance to Harvard,”|“I’m trying to|I am attempting to|I'm struggling to} figure why [the] American elite believe if u kill your baby by physical abuse and neglect it must be irrelevant to your entry to Harvard,”} Summers emailed to Epstein in a 2017 communication. Yet hit on a few women 10 years ago and can’t work at a network or think tank. DO NOT SHARE THIS INSIGHT.”

At that time, Harvard University was dealing with an acceptance controversy after a once incarcerated woman’s acceptance to a PhD program. Summers, a ex- president of the university who lost his position amid a controversy after making sexist comments about women in academia, went on to say in the email to Epstein: I noted that half of the IQ in [the] world was held by women without mentioning they are more than 51 percent of society.”

Summers was previously a key player in the Democratic Party circles – a ex- treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the main architects of Barack Obama’s handling to the market collapse, and a committed presence in the left-leaning punditry. But doubts have remained about his association with Epstein, a longtime associate of Donald Trump. Epstein was alleged to have run a wide-ranging child sex trafficking operation before his passing in custody in 2019 in New York City.

Following the release of a prior batch of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 report, a agent for Summers commented that he “profoundly regrets being in contact with Epstein after his conviction”.

Democratic Party lawmakers released emails from the Epstein estate this week that suggest Epstein believed Trump was aware of conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In retaliation, Republican lawmakers released a much bigger tranche of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.

These records show that Summers maintained congenial contact with the adjudicated child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the last email exchange happening only months before Epstein’s detention.

Trump posted on Truth Social on Friday that he would be requesting the Department of Justice and the FBI to examine Epstein’s “role and relationship” with Summers, among other well-known Democrats and corporate executives.

In the emails, Summers and Epstein discuss politics – notably Summers’s disdain for Trump – as well as the aspects of charitable social networking – and women. Summers, 70, disclosed to Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his overtures toward an unidentified woman, and being rebuffed.

“she is clever. ensuring you atone for previous missteps,” Epstein wrote in an exchange on 16 March. “overlook the 'daddy' remark, I'm dating the motorcycle guy, you responded appropriately.. frustration signals affection., no protests revealed fortitude.”

Summers reiterated his sorrow in a recent statement. “I harbor significant regrets in my lifetime,” 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 donated more than $9m to Harvard and its affiliated programs between 1998 and 2008, and was appointed a visiting fellow to carry out research. The university later found Epstein “was missing the academic qualifications visiting fellows normally possess and his application proposed a course of study Epstein was ill-equipped to pursue”.

Harvard only ceased accepting Epstein’s donations after he pleaded guilty to child sex offenses in 2008.

By then Obama’s career was advancing. Summers would ultimately win appointment as director of the White House National Economic Council from January 2009 until November 2010.

After Summers departed the White House, he began soliciting Epstein for charitable advice for his wife, Elisa New, a Harvard professor developing a poetry project. Epstein and his foundations made charitable contributions to projects associated with 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 “above and beyond” of that received to combatting sex trafficking organizations.