Uncovered Communications Depict Jeffrey Epstein and Summers as Trusted Friends

A series of communications between adjudicated child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and one-time US finance chief Larry Summers came to light this week, showing the pair served as close contacts.

These exchanges, dating from 2013 to early 2019, show the two men exchanging private – and at times questionable – opinions on politics and relationships.

I am attempting to determine why [the] American elite think if u murder your baby by violence and desertion it must be unimportant to your acceptance to Harvard,”|“I’m trying to|I am attempting to|I'm struggling to} figure why [the] American elite think if u murder your baby by physical abuse and neglect it must be unimportant to your acceptance to Harvard,”} Summers stated to Epstein in a 2017 communication. Yet hit on a few women 10 years ago and cannot work at a network or think tank. DO NOT REPEAT THIS INSIGHT.”

During that period, Harvard University was dealing with an enrollment controversy after a formerly incarcerated woman’s enrollment to a PhD program. Summers, a one-time president of the university who stepped down amid a controversy after making gender-biased comments about women scholars, continued in the correspondence to Epstein: “I observed that half of the IQ in [the] world was possessed by women without stating they are more than 51 percent of the populace.”

Summers was at one time a prominent figure in liberal circles – a former treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the primary engineers of Barack Obama’s handling to the financial crisis, and a committed figure in the progressive media. But questions have persisted about his association with Epstein, a long-standing associate of Donald Trump. Epstein was alleged to have run a wide-ranging exploitation operation before his passing in jail in 2019 in New York City.

Following publication of a earlier set of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 article, a spokesperson for Summers said that he “is very sorry for being in contact with Epstein after his legal finding”.

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

The released materials show that Summers maintained amicable contact with the adjudicated child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the last email exchange taking place only months before Epstein’s arrest.

Trump posted on Truth Social on Friday that he would be requesting the Department of Justice and the FBI to look into Epstein’s “participation and association” with Summers, among other prominent liberal leaders and corporate executives.

In the emails, Summers and Epstein converse on politics – particularly Summers’s dislike for Trump – as well as the particulars of charitable social networking – and women. Summers, 70, confided in Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his advances toward an anonymous woman, and being rejected.

“she is clever. ensuring you atone for previous missteps,” Epstein responded 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 restated his sorrow in a recent statement. “I harbor significant regrets in my lifetime,” he said. “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 appointed a visiting fellow to perform research. The university later concluded Epstein “did not have the educational background visiting fellows normally possess and his application proposed 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.

At that point Obama’s profile was growing. Summers would eventually secure 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 charitable advice for his wife, Elisa New, a Harvard professor working on a poetry project. Epstein and his foundations made philanthropic donations to projects linked to Summers’s wife, and the two men met a multiple times between 2013 and 2016, often for dinner.

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