Disclosed Communications Depict Epstein and Summers as Confidantes

A series of messages between adjudicated offender Jeffrey Epstein and one-time US Treasury Secretary Larry Summers were released this week, indicating the pair acted as confidants.

Their correspondence, spanning 2013 to early 2019, reveal the two men sharing private – and at times improper – opinions on politics and interpersonal dynamics.

“I’m trying to figure why [the] American elite think if u take the life of your baby by beating and neglect it must be not a factor 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 abandonment it must be not a factor to your acceptance to Harvard,”} Summers wrote to Epstein in a 2017 communication. Yet made advances toward a few women 10 years ago and cannot work at a network or think tank. DO NOT REPEAT THIS IDEA.”

Back then, Harvard University was grappling with an admissions controversy after a formerly incarcerated woman’s acceptance to a PhD program. Summers, a one-time president of the university who stepped down amid a controversy after making sexist comments about female academics, added in the message to Epstein: I noted that half of the IQ in [the] world was possessed by women without noting they are more than 51 percent of society.”

Summers was once a leading light in the Democratic Party circles – a ex- treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the primary architects of Barack Obama’s handling to the market collapse, and a stalwart presence in the left-leaning punditry. But doubts have lingered about his connection with Epstein, a long-standing associate of Donald Trump. Epstein was charged with a broad exploitation operation before his passing in jail in 2019 in New York City.

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

Democratic Party lawmakers released emails from the Epstein estate this week that imply Epstein believed Trump was aware of conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In retaliation, GOP lawmakers released a more extensive collection of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.

These records show that Summers continued friendly contact with the adjudicated child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the final email exchange taking place 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 examine Epstein’s “role and association” with Summers, among other prominent Democrats and corporate executives.

In the emails, Summers and Epstein converse on politics – notably Summers’s contempt for Trump – as well as the aspects of charitable social networking – and women. Summers, 70, shared with 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 affirmed his sorrow in a recent statement. “I have great regrets 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 contributed more than $9m to Harvard and its affiliated programs between 1998 and 2008, and was named a visiting fellow to carry out research. The university later concluded Epstein “did not have the academic qualifications visiting fellows normally possess and his application proposed a course of study Epstein was unqualified to pursue”.

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

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

After Summers left the White House, he began requesting Epstein for philanthropic advice for his wife, Elisa New, a Harvard professor developing a poetry project. Epstein and his foundations made gifts to projects linked to Summers’s wife, and the two men saw each other a multiple times between 2013 and 2016, often for dinner.

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