Disclosed Communications Show Epstein and Summers as Confidantes

A series of communications between adjudicated child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and ex- US Treasury Secretary Larry Summers have emerged this week, showing the pair served as close contacts.

The messages, spanning 2013 to early 2019, show the two men exchanging intimate – and at times questionable – views on politics and personal connections.

I am attempting to figure why [the] American elite think if u murder your baby by beating and abandonment it must be not a factor 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 take the life of your baby by violence and abandonment it must be irrelevant to your acceptance to Harvard,”} Summers emailed to Epstein in a 2017 message. “But hit on a few women 10 years ago and are unable to work at a network or think tank. DO NOT SHARE THIS IDEA.”

Back then, Harvard University was dealing with an acceptance debate after a previously incarcerated woman’s acceptance to a PhD program. Summers, a ex- president of the university who resigned amid a scandal after making discriminatory comments about women scholars, added in the correspondence to Epstein: I pointed out that half of the IQ in [the] world was possessed by women without mentioning they are more than 51 percent of society.”

Summers was at one time a prominent figure in Democratic circles – a one-time treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the primary designers of Barack Obama’s response to the economic downturn, and a committed figure in the progressive media. But concerns have lingered about his association with Epstein, a long-standing connection of Donald Trump. Epstein was alleged to have run a broad exploitation operation before his passing in prison in 2019 in New York City.

Following publication of a prior tranche of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 piece, a representative for Summers said that he “profoundly regrets being in contact with Epstein after his legal finding”.

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 retaliation, Conservative lawmakers published a larger tranche of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.

These records show that Summers kept up friendly contact with the adjudicated child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the most recent email exchange occurring only months before Epstein’s detention.

Trump posted on Truth Social on Friday that he would be requesting the Department of Justice and the FBI to investigate Epstein’s “participation and relationship” with Summers, among other prominent Democratic figures and industry figures.

In the emails, Summers and Epstein talk about politics – particularly Summers’s dislike 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 turned down.

“she is clever. ensuring you atone for previous missteps,” Epstein wrote 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 regret 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 gave more than $9m to Harvard and its related programs between 1998 and 2008, and was designated a visiting fellow to conduct research. The university later concluded Epstein “was missing the scholarly credentials visiting fellows usually possess and his application proposed a course of study Epstein was unqualified to pursue”.

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

At that point Obama’s profile was growing. Summers would ultimately win appointment as director of the White House NEC from January 2009 until November 2010.

After Summers exited the White House, he began asking 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 linked to Summers’s wife, and the two men got together a dozen times between 2013 and 2016, often for dinner.

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