Disclosed Communications Depict Jeffrey Epstein and Summers as Confidantes

A series of communications between found guilty child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and former US treasury head Larry Summers have emerged this week, revealing the pair were confidants.

These exchanges, spanning 2013 to early 2019, demonstrate the two men sharing private – and at times questionable – perspectives on public affairs and relationships.

I am attempting to determine why [the] American elite think if u take the life of your baby by violence 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 violence and neglect it must be irrelevant to your acceptance to Harvard,”} Summers emailed to Epstein in a 2017 email. Yet flirted with a few women 10 years ago and can’t work at a network or think tank. KEEP CONFIDENTIAL THIS INSIGHT.”

At that time, Harvard University was wrestling with an enrollment discussion after a formerly incarcerated woman’s enrollment to a PhD program. Summers, a former president of the university who resigned amid a uproar after making discriminatory comments about women in academia, went on to say in the email to Epstein: I noted that half of the IQ in [the] world was owned by women without stating they are more than 51 percent of society.”

Summers was at one time a key player in the Democratic Party circles – a one-time treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the key designers of Barack Obama’s handling to the economic downturn, and a stalwart voice in the progressive media. But concerns have persisted about his association with Epstein, a long-standing connection of Donald Trump. Epstein was charged with a wide-ranging exploitation operation before his demise in prison in 2019 in New York City.

Following the release of a earlier set of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 piece, a spokesperson for Summers commented that he “deeply regrets being in contact with Epstein after his legal finding”.

Democratic Party lawmakers made public emails from the Epstein estate this week that suggest Epstein thought Trump was aware of conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In response, Republican lawmakers published a larger collection of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.

The released materials show that Summers continued congenial contact with the found guilty child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the final email exchange occurring only months before Epstein’s arrest.

Trump stated on Truth Social on Friday that he would be requesting the Department of Justice and the FBI to investigate Epstein’s “role and association” with Summers, among other influential liberal leaders and corporate executives.

In the emails, Summers and Epstein talk about politics – notably Summers’s contempt for Trump – as well as the aspects of non-profit social networking – and women. Summers, 70, confided in Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his advances toward an unidentified woman, and being rebuffed.

“she is clever. ensuring you atone for previous missteps,” Epstein responded in an exchange on 16 March. “disregard the 'daddy' comment, I'm going out with the motorcycle guy, you handled it well.. irritation indicates concern., no complaining demonstrated strength.”

Summers restated 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 affiliated programs between 1998 and 2008, and was named a visiting fellow to conduct research. The university later found Epstein “was missing the scholarly credentials visiting fellows normally possess and his application suggested a course of study Epstein was unqualified to pursue”.

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

By that time Obama’s profile was growing. Summers would later secure appointment as director of the White House National Economic Council from January 2009 until November 2010.

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

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