Revealed Communications Illustrate Epstein and Summers as Confidantes

Numerous exchanges between convicted offender Jeffrey Epstein and one-time US treasury head Larry Summers were released this week, showing the pair were trusted allies.

The messages, spanning 2013 to early 2019, show the two men discussing personal – and at times questionable – perspectives on political matters and relationships.

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

Back then, Harvard University was dealing with an enrollment discussion after a once incarcerated woman’s admission to a PhD program. Summers, a former president of the university who lost his position amid a controversy after making gender-biased comments about women in academia, continued in the email 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 population.”

Summers was once a leading light in the Democratic Party circles – a one-time treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the key architects of Barack Obama’s response to the market collapse, and a steadfast figure in the progressive media. But concerns have lingered about his relationship with Epstein, a longtime associate of Donald Trump. Epstein was accused of a wide-ranging exploitation operation before his passing in custody in 2019 in New York City.

Following the release of a prior tranche 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 guilty verdict”.

Left-leaning lawmakers disclosed emails from the Epstein estate this week that suggest Epstein believed Trump was knew about conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In reply, GOP lawmakers issued a much bigger tranche of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.

The documents show that Summers kept up amicable contact with the adjudicated child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the last email exchange occurring 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 examine Epstein’s “role and association” with Summers, among other prominent Democrats and industry figures.

In the emails, Summers and Epstein converse on politics – particularly Summers’s contempt for Trump – as well as the particulars of charitable social networking – and women. Summers, 70, disclosed to Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his romantic gestures toward an unnamed woman, and being turned down.

“shes smart. making you pay for past errors,” Epstein responded 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. “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 contributed 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 found Epstein “lacked the scholarly credentials visiting fellows usually possess and his application proposed a course of study Epstein was unqualified to pursue”.

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

By that time Obama’s star was rising. Summers would eventually win appointment as director of the White House NEC from January 2009 until November 2010.

After Summers departed the White House, he began asking Epstein for charitable advice for his wife, Elisa New, a Harvard professor working on a poetry project. Epstein and his foundations made gifts to projects connected to Summers’s wife, and the two men got together a multiple times between 2013 and 2016, often for dinner.

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