Disclosed Communications Show Epstein and Summers as Trusted Friends

A series of communications between found guilty child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and ex- US treasury head Larry Summers were released this week, indicating the pair served as trusted allies.

The messages, spanning 2013 to early 2019, reveal the two men exchanging personal – and at times questionable – views on political matters and personal connections.

I am attempting to understand why [the] American elite believe if u take the life of your baby by physical abuse 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} understand why [the] American elite believe if u take the life of your baby by violence and abandonment it must be unimportant to your entry to Harvard,”} Summers stated to Epstein in a 2017 message. However flirted with a few women 10 years ago and cannot work at a network or think tank. DO NOT REPEAT THIS IDEA.”

Back then, Harvard University was grappling with an enrollment controversy after a formerly incarcerated woman’s enrollment to a PhD program. Summers, a former president of the university who lost his position amid a uproar after making discriminatory comments about women in academia, went on to say in the correspondence to Epstein: “I observed that half of the IQ in [the] world was owned by women without noting they are more than 51 percent of society.”

Summers was previously a key player in the Democratic Party circles – a one-time treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the primary engineers of Barack Obama’s response to the market collapse, and a stalwart voice in the liberal commentariat. But questions have lingered about his relationship with Epstein, a former associate of Donald Trump. Epstein was charged with a wide-ranging child sex trafficking operation before his passing in jail in 2019 in New York City.

Following disclosure of a prior batch of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 piece, a agent for Summers said that he “is very sorry for being in contact with Epstein after his legal finding”.

Democratic Party lawmakers made public emails from the Epstein estate this week that indicate Epstein believed Trump was aware of conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In retaliation, GOP lawmakers issued a more extensive tranche of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.

These records show that Summers kept up congenial contact with the adjudicated child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the last email exchange happening only months before Epstein’s apprehension.

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

In the emails, Summers and Epstein talk about politics – notably Summers’s contempt for Trump – as well as the aspects of charitable social networking – and women. Summers, 70, shared with Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his advances toward an anonymous woman, and being rejected.

“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. “There are many things I regret in my life,” he said. “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 donated more than $9m to Harvard and its related programs between 1998 and 2008, and was named a visiting fellow to perform research. The university later found Epstein “was missing the scholarly credentials visiting fellows typically possess and his application suggested a course of study Epstein was ill-equipped to pursue”.

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

By then Obama’s star was rising. Summers would eventually receive appointment as director of the White House National Economic Council from January 2009 until November 2010.

After Summers left the White House, he began requesting 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 connected to Summers’s wife, and the two men met a dozen times between 2013 and 2016, often for dinner.

After reporting about Epstein’s donations surfaced, New’s charity made a donation “more than” of that received to anti-sex-trafficking organizations.