Disclosed Exchanges Illustrate Epstein and Summers as Confidantes

Numerous exchanges between convicted child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and former US Treasury Secretary Larry Summers have emerged this week, indicating the pair acted as trusted allies.

The messages, spanning 2013 to early 2019, demonstrate the two men exchanging private – and at times questionable – perspectives on politics and personal connections.

I'm struggling to figure 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 murder your baby by physical abuse and desertion it must be unimportant to your entry to Harvard,”} Summers emailed to Epstein in a 2017 communication. “But made advances toward a few women 10 years ago and are unable to work at a network or think tank. KEEP CONFIDENTIAL THIS IDEA.”

During that period, Harvard University was wrestling with an acceptance debate after a previously incarcerated woman’s acceptance to a PhD program. Summers, a ex- president of the university who lost his position amid a controversy after making gender-biased comments about women in academia, continued in the correspondence to Epstein: I noted that half of the IQ in [the] world was possessed by women without noting they are more than 51 percent of population.”

Summers was once a leading light in Democratic circles – a former treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the main architects of Barack Obama’s response to the financial crisis, and a committed presence in the left-leaning punditry. But concerns have persisted about his connection with Epstein, a former connection of Donald Trump. Epstein was alleged to have run a extensive child sex trafficking operation before his death in prison in 2019 in New York City.

Following publication of a prior set of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 report, a representative for Summers stated that he “profoundly regrets being in contact with Epstein after his conviction”.

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

These records show that Summers continued amicable contact with the adjudicated child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the most recent email exchange happening only months before Epstein’s arrest.

Trump wrote on Truth Social on Friday that he would be asking the Department of Justice and the FBI to look into Epstein’s “involvement and association” with Summers, among other well-known Democrats and corporate executives.

In the emails, Summers and Epstein talk about politics – especially Summers’s dislike for Trump – as well as the details of non-profit social networking – and women. Summers, 70, disclosed to Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his advances toward an unidentified woman, and being rejected.

“shes smart. making you pay for past errors,” Epstein responded in an exchange on 16 March. “ignore the daddy im going to go out with the motorcycle guy, you reacted well.. annoyed shows caring., no whining showed strentgh.”

Summers restated his sorrow in a recent statement. “I harbor significant regrets in my lifetime,” 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 contributed more than $9m to Harvard and its related programs between 1998 and 2008, and was appointed a visiting fellow to perform research. The university later concluded Epstein “lacked the academic qualifications 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 confessed to child sex offenses in 2008.

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

After Summers left the White House, he began soliciting Epstein for charitable advice for his wife, Elisa New, a Harvard professor pursuing 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 dozen times between 2013 and 2016, often for dinner.

After media coverage about Epstein’s donations surfaced, New’s charity made a donation “in excess” of that received to anti-exploitation organizations.