Revealed Communications Show Epstein and Summers as Confidantes

A series of communications between adjudicated sex criminal Jeffrey Epstein and former US finance chief Larry Summers have emerged this week, revealing the pair served as close contacts.

The messages, spanning 2013 to early 2019, show the two men exchanging personal – and at times questionable – opinions on political matters and interpersonal dynamics.

I am attempting to understand why [the] American elite feel if u kill your baby by beating and desertion 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 feel if u kill your baby by beating and neglect it must be not a factor to your admission to Harvard,”} Summers wrote to Epstein in a 2017 message. “But flirted with a few women 10 years ago and are unable to work at a network or think tank. DO NOT REPEAT THIS INSIGHT.”

At that time, Harvard University was wrestling with an acceptance controversy after a previously 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, went on to say in the correspondence to Epstein: I pointed out that half of the IQ in [the] world was held by women without noting they are more than 51 percent of the populace.”

Summers was previously a key player in the Democratic Party circles – a ex- treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the main engineers of Barack Obama’s handling to the market collapse, and a committed presence in the progressive media. But doubts have remained about his association with Epstein, a former contact of Donald Trump. Epstein was charged with a extensive sex trafficking of minors operation before his passing in jail in 2019 in New York City.

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

Democratic lawmakers released emails from the Epstein estate this week that suggest Epstein was of the opinion Trump was had knowledge of conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In response, Republican lawmakers released a larger collection of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.

These records show that Summers maintained amicable contact with the convicted child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the final email exchange occurring only months before Epstein’s arrest.

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 relationship” with Summers, among other well-known Democrats and corporate executives.

In the emails, Summers and Epstein discuss politics – particularly Summers’s contempt for Trump – as well as the details of non-profit social networking – and women. Summers, 70, confided in Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his romantic gestures toward an anonymous woman, and being rebuffed.

“she's intelligent. holding you accountable for past mistakes,” Epstein responded 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 affirmed his regret in a recent statement. “There are many things I regret in my life,” he said. “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 appointed a visiting fellow to carry out research. The university later found Epstein “lacked the academic qualifications visiting fellows typically possess and his application proposed a course of study Epstein was ill-equipped to pursue”.

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

By that time Obama’s star was rising. Summers would later win appointment as director of the White House NEC from January 2009 until November 2010.

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

After news about Epstein’s donations surfaced, New’s charity made a donation “in excess” of that received to anti-sex-trafficking organizations.