Disclosed Communications Illustrate Jeffrey Epstein and Summers as Confidantes

Numerous messages between adjudicated child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and former US Treasury Secretary Larry Summers came to light this week, indicating the pair acted as close contacts.

Their correspondence, spanning 2013 to early 2019, show the two men sharing private – and at times improper – perspectives on political matters and personal connections.

I'm struggling to understand why [the] American elite believe if u take the life of 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} figure why [the] American elite believe if u murder your baby by beating and abandonment it must be unimportant to your admission to Harvard,”} Summers wrote to Epstein in a 2017 message. Yet flirted with a few women 10 years ago and can’t work at a network or think tank. DO NOT SHARE THIS INSIGHT.”

During that period, Harvard University was grappling with an acceptance debate after a previously incarcerated woman’s admission 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 women in academia, 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 once a prominent figure in the Democratic Party circles – a former treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the main designers of Barack Obama’s approach to the economic downturn, and a committed presence in the progressive media. But doubts have persisted about his association with Epstein, a longtime connection of Donald Trump. Epstein was accused of a broad sex trafficking of minors operation before his death in prison in 2019 in New York City.

Following the release of a earlier set of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 report, a representative for Summers said that he “profoundly regrets being in contact with Epstein after his guilty verdict”.

Democratic lawmakers disclosed emails from the Epstein estate this week that suggest Epstein was of the opinion Trump was aware of conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In reply, GOP lawmakers released a more extensive batch of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.

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

Trump posted on Truth Social on Friday that he would be asking the Department of Justice and the FBI to examine Epstein’s “participation and relationship” with Summers, among other well-known Democratic figures and business leaders.

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

“shes smart. making you pay for past errors,” Epstein responded 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 restated his regret in a recent statement. “There are many things I regret 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 gave more than $9m to Harvard and its related programs between 1998 and 2008, and was designated a visiting fellow to conduct research. The university later determined Epstein “was missing the scholarly credentials visiting fellows typically possess and his application suggested a course of study Epstein was not prepared to pursue”.

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

At that point Obama’s star was rising. Summers would ultimately 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 philanthropic advice for his wife, Elisa New, a Harvard professor working on a poetry project. Epstein and his foundations made philanthropic donations to projects connected to Summers’s wife, and the two men got together a twelve times between 2013 and 2016, often for dinner.

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