Disclosed Exchanges Illustrate Jeffrey Epstein and Summers as Confidantes

A series of communications between adjudicated offender Jeffrey Epstein and ex- US Treasury Secretary Larry Summers have emerged this week, showing the pair served as close contacts.

These exchanges, spanning 2013 to early 2019, reveal the two men sharing private – and at times unseemly – opinions on political matters and interpersonal dynamics.

I'm struggling to determine why [the] American elite think if u murder your baby by physical abuse and abandonment it must be irrelevant 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 physical abuse and neglect it must be unimportant to your admission to Harvard,”} Summers emailed to Epstein in a 2017 communication. “But flirted with a few women 10 years ago and cannot work at a network or think tank. DO NOT REPEAT THIS IDEA.”

At that time, Harvard University was dealing with an enrollment controversy after a previously incarcerated woman’s enrollment to a PhD program. Summers, a former president of the university who lost his position amid a controversy after making sexist comments about female academics, continued in the message 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 society.”

Summers was previously a leading light in liberal circles – a former treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the primary architects of Barack Obama’s approach to the economic downturn, and a steadfast figure in the left-leaning punditry. But questions have remained about his connection with Epstein, a longtime connection of Donald Trump. Epstein was alleged to have run a wide-ranging exploitation operation before his death in custody in 2019 in New York City.

Following the release of a earlier batch of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 article, a spokesperson for Summers stated that he “deeply regrets being in contact with Epstein after his guilty verdict”.

Democratic Party lawmakers disclosed emails from the Epstein estate this week that indicate Epstein thought Trump was aware of conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In retaliation, Republican lawmakers issued a larger collection of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.

The documents show that Summers kept up amicable contact with the found guilty child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the most recent email exchange happening only months before Epstein’s detention.

Trump stated on Truth Social on Friday that he would be asking the Department of Justice and the FBI to investigate Epstein’s “involvement and association” with Summers, among other well-known Democratic figures 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 unidentified woman, and being rejected.

“shes smart. making you pay for past errors,” Epstein wrote 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 affirmed 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 associated programs between 1998 and 2008, and was named a visiting fellow to carry out research. The university later concluded Epstein “was missing the academic qualifications visiting fellows typically possess and his application suggested a course of study Epstein was ill-equipped to pursue”.

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

By that time Obama’s star was rising. Summers would ultimately secure 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 philanthropic donations to projects associated with Summers’s wife, and the two men met a multiple times between 2013 and 2016, often for dinner.

After media coverage about Epstein’s donations came out, New’s charity made a donation “above and beyond” of that received to anti-exploitation organizations.