Revealed Communications Depict Epstein and Summers as Close Associates

Numerous exchanges between convicted child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and former US Treasury Secretary Larry Summers were released this week, revealing the pair acted as close contacts.

The messages, spanning 2013 to early 2019, show the two men exchanging private – and at times improper – opinions on political matters and relationships.

“I’m trying to figure why [the] American elite feel if u murder your baby by physical abuse and desertion it must be unimportant to your admission to Harvard,”|“I’m trying to|I am attempting to|I'm struggling to} understand why [the] American elite feel if u kill your baby by beating and neglect it must be irrelevant to your entry to Harvard,”} Summers wrote to Epstein in a 2017 message. Yet hit on a few women 10 years ago and are unable to work at a network or think tank. DO NOT SHARE THIS INSIGHT.”

During that period, Harvard University was grappling with an enrollment controversy after a once incarcerated woman’s acceptance to a PhD program. Summers, a former president of the university who lost his position amid a uproar after making sexist comments about female academics, went on to say in the message to Epstein: I noted that half of the IQ in [the] world was held by women without mentioning they are more than 51 percent of population.”

Summers was at one time a leading light in Democratic circles – a one-time treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the main designers of Barack Obama’s handling to the financial crisis, and a committed figure in the left-leaning punditry. But concerns have remained about his relationship with Epstein, a former contact of Donald Trump. Epstein was charged with a extensive child sex trafficking operation before his passing in prison in 2019 in New York City.

Following disclosure of a prior set of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 report, a agent for Summers commented that he “deeply regrets being in contact with Epstein after his guilty verdict”.

Left-leaning lawmakers disclosed emails from the Epstein estate this week that imply Epstein thought Trump was aware of conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In response, GOP lawmakers published a more extensive tranche of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.

The documents show that Summers kept up congenial contact with the found guilty child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the final email exchange taking place only months before Epstein’s arrest.

Trump posted on Truth Social on Friday that he would be instructing the Department of Justice and the FBI to investigate Epstein’s “involvement and association” with Summers, among other influential Democrats and industry figures.

In the emails, Summers and Epstein talk about politics – notably Summers’s disdain for Trump – as well as the aspects of non-profit social networking – and women. Summers, 70, disclosed to 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 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 reiterated his remorse in a recent statement. “I harbor significant regrets in my lifetime,” he wrote. “As previously stated, my connection to Jeffrey Epstein represented a serious lapse in judgment.”

Summers was president of Harvard University from 2001 to 2006. Epstein gave more than $9m to Harvard and its associated programs between 1998 and 2008, and was appointed a visiting fellow to conduct research. The university later concluded Epstein “was missing the academic qualifications visiting fellows normally possess and his application proposed a course of study Epstein was ill-equipped to pursue”.

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

By then Obama’s career was advancing. Summers would later win appointment as director of the White House economic advisory body from January 2009 until November 2010.

After Summers exited the White House, he began soliciting Epstein for non-profit advice for his wife, Elisa New, a Harvard professor developing a poetry project. Epstein and his foundations made philanthropic donations 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 “more than” of that received to combatting sex trafficking organizations.