Revealed Communications Show Jeffrey Epstein and Summers as Confidantes

A series of messages between found guilty sex criminal Jeffrey Epstein and one-time US finance chief Larry Summers came to light this week, showing the pair served as confidants.

The messages, covering 2013 to early 2019, show the two men sharing intimate – and at times questionable – perspectives on politics and interpersonal dynamics.

I'm struggling to understand why [the] American elite believe if u take the life of your baby by violence and desertion 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 kill your baby by violence and neglect it must be irrelevant to your acceptance to Harvard,”} Summers wrote to Epstein in a 2017 message. Yet flirted with a few women 10 years ago and cannot work at a network or think tank. KEEP CONFIDENTIAL THIS IDEA.”

Back then, Harvard University was wrestling with an enrollment controversy after a previously incarcerated woman’s acceptance to a PhD program. Summers, a one-time president of the university who lost his position amid a uproar after making gender-biased comments about female academics, continued in the message to Epstein: I pointed out that half of the IQ in [the] world was owned by women without mentioning they are more than 51 percent of the populace.”

Summers was once a prominent figure in Democratic circles – a ex- treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the primary designers of Barack Obama’s response to the economic downturn, and a steadfast figure in the progressive media. But doubts have persisted about his connection with Epstein, a former associate of Donald Trump. Epstein was alleged to have run a extensive exploitation operation before his passing in jail in 2019 in New York City.

Following the release of a previous set of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 report, a spokesperson 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 imply Epstein believed Trump was aware of conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In retaliation, Republican lawmakers released a larger collection of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.

The documents show that Summers maintained congenial contact with the convicted child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the last email exchange occurring only months before Epstein’s detention.

Trump wrote on Truth Social on Friday that he would be instructing the Department of Justice and the FBI to investigate Epstein’s “participation and relationship” with Summers, among other influential liberal leaders and business leaders.

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

“she's intelligent. holding you accountable for past mistakes,” 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 have great regrets in my life,” he wrote. “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 named a visiting fellow to perform research. The university later found Epstein “was missing the educational background visiting fellows normally possess and his application outlined a course of study Epstein was not prepared to pursue”.

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

At that point Obama’s profile was growing. Summers would eventually 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 asking Epstein for charitable advice for his wife, Elisa New, a Harvard professor developing a poetry project. Epstein and his foundations made gifts to projects connected to Summers’s wife, and the two men saw each other a twelve times between 2013 and 2016, often for dinner.

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