Uncovered Exchanges Illustrate Jeffrey Epstein and Summers as Close Associates

A series of exchanges between found guilty sex criminal Jeffrey Epstein and former US finance chief Larry Summers have emerged this week, revealing the pair were confidants.

Their correspondence, dating from 2013 to early 2019, reveal the two men exchanging private – and at times questionable – opinions on public affairs and personal connections.

I'm struggling to figure why [the] American elite believe if u take the life of your baby by beating and abandonment 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 murder your baby by violence and desertion it must be unimportant to your admission to Harvard,”} Summers emailed to Epstein in a 2017 message. However flirted with a few women 10 years ago and are unable to work at a network or think tank. DO NOT REPEAT THIS INSIGHT.”

Back then, Harvard University was grappling with an enrollment discussion after a previously incarcerated woman’s admission to a PhD program. Summers, a former president of the university who stepped down amid a uproar after making discriminatory comments about women scholars, went on to say in the correspondence to Epstein: I pointed out 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 prominent figure in liberal circles – a former treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the key engineers of Barack Obama’s handling to the market collapse, and a committed presence in the left-leaning punditry. But concerns have persisted about his association with Epstein, a longtime connection of Donald Trump. Epstein was alleged to have run a broad exploitation operation before his passing in custody in 2019 in New York City.

Following disclosure of a previous tranche of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 piece, a representative for Summers stated that he “deeply regrets being in contact with Epstein after his conviction”.

Democratic Party lawmakers made public emails from the Epstein estate this week that imply Epstein believed Trump was had knowledge of conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In response, Republican lawmakers published a much bigger collection of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.

The released materials show that Summers maintained congenial contact with the adjudicated 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 investigate Epstein’s “participation and relationship” with Summers, among other well-known Democrats and industry figures.

In the emails, Summers and Epstein converse on politics – notably Summers’s disdain for Trump – as well as the particulars of non-profit social networking – and women. Summers, 70, confided in 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 commented. “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 affiliated programs between 1998 and 2008, and was designated a visiting fellow to carry out research. The university later found Epstein “was missing the educational background visiting fellows normally possess and his application suggested 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 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 requesting Epstein for philanthropic advice for his wife, Elisa New, a Harvard professor working on a poetry project. Epstein and his foundations made charitable contributions to projects associated with 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 “above and beyond” of that received to combatting sex trafficking organizations.