Disclosed Exchanges Depict Jeffrey Epstein and Summers as Close Associates

Multiple communications between convicted sex criminal Jeffrey Epstein and ex- US treasury head Larry Summers have emerged this week, indicating the pair served as confidants.

Their correspondence, dating from 2013 to early 2019, demonstrate the two men exchanging personal – and at times improper – opinions on public affairs and relationships.

I'm struggling to figure why [the] American elite believe if u kill your baby by violence and abandonment it must be not a factor to your admission to Harvard,”|“I’m trying to|I am attempting to|I'm struggling to} determine why [the] American elite believe if u murder your baby by beating and abandonment it must be irrelevant to your admission to Harvard,”} Summers emailed to Epstein in a 2017 message. Yet hit on a few women 10 years ago and can’t work at a network or think tank. DO NOT REPEAT THIS IDEA.”

Back then, Harvard University was grappling with an acceptance controversy after a formerly incarcerated woman’s enrollment to a PhD program. Summers, a former president of the university who resigned amid a scandal after making sexist comments about female academics, added 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 population.”

Summers was at one time a leading light in the Democratic Party circles – a one-time treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the primary architects of Barack Obama’s approach to the financial crisis, and a steadfast voice in the progressive media. But doubts have remained about his association with Epstein, a former associate of Donald Trump. Epstein was alleged to have run a broad sex trafficking of minors operation before his death in prison in 2019 in New York City.

Following disclosure of a prior tranche of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 piece, a representative for Summers commented that he “deeply regrets being in contact with Epstein after his conviction”.

Democratic Party lawmakers made public emails from the Epstein estate this week that imply Epstein was of the opinion Trump was knew about conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In reply, GOP lawmakers issued a much bigger tranche of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.

These records show that Summers kept up amicable contact with the convicted 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 instructing the Department of Justice and the FBI to look into Epstein’s “involvement and relationship” with Summers, among other well-known liberal leaders and business leaders.

In the emails, Summers and Epstein discuss politics – especially Summers’s disdain for Trump – as well as the particulars of philanthropic social networking – and women. Summers, 70, shared with Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his advances toward an unnamed woman, and being rebuffed.

“she is clever. ensuring you atone for previous missteps,” Epstein wrote 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 reiterated his remorse in a recent statement. “I harbor significant regrets in my lifetime,” 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 donated more than $9m to Harvard and its related programs between 1998 and 2008, and was appointed a visiting fellow to perform research. The university later determined Epstein “was missing the educational background visiting fellows typically possess and his application outlined a course of study Epstein was not prepared to pursue”.

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

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

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

After news about Epstein’s donations emerged, New’s charity made a donation “above and beyond” of that received to anti-sex-trafficking organizations.