Uncovered Exchanges Illustrate Jeffrey Epstein and Summers as Trusted Friends

Numerous messages between adjudicated offender Jeffrey Epstein and former US Treasury Secretary Larry Summers have emerged this week, revealing the pair were confidants.

Their correspondence, covering 2013 to early 2019, reveal the two men sharing private – and at times questionable – views on political matters and relationships.

I'm struggling to determine why [the] American elite think if u kill your baby by beating and desertion it must be not a factor to your entry to Harvard,”|“I’m trying to|I am attempting to|I'm struggling to} figure why [the] American elite think if u take the life of your baby by violence and neglect it must be irrelevant to your entry to Harvard,”} Summers emailed to Epstein in a 2017 message. However made advances toward a few women 10 years ago and can’t work at a network or think tank. DO NOT REPEAT THIS INSIGHT.”

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

Summers was at one time a prominent figure in liberal circles – a one-time treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the key architects of Barack Obama’s response to the economic downturn, and a steadfast figure in the left-leaning punditry. But doubts have persisted about his relationship with Epstein, a former connection of Donald Trump. Epstein was accused of a broad exploitation operation before his death in jail in 2019 in New York City.

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

Democratic Party lawmakers made public 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 response, Conservative lawmakers issued a more extensive collection of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.

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

Trump stated on Truth Social on Friday that he would be asking the Department of Justice and the FBI to look into Epstein’s “role and relationship” with Summers, among other prominent Democratic figures and industry figures.

In the emails, Summers and Epstein talk about politics – particularly Summers’s disdain for Trump – as well as the particulars of non-profit social networking – and women. Summers, 70, shared with Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his overtures toward an anonymous woman, and being turned down.

“she is clever. ensuring you atone for previous missteps,” 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 remorse in a recent statement. “I have great regrets in my life,” he wrote. “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 designated a visiting fellow to perform research. The university later concluded Epstein “was missing the educational background visiting fellows usually possess and his application proposed a course of study Epstein was ill-equipped to pursue”.

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

By that time Obama’s profile was growing. Summers would eventually secure 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 charitable contributions to projects linked to Summers’s wife, and the two men saw each other a dozen times between 2013 and 2016, often for dinner.

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