Uncovered Exchanges Illustrate Jeffrey Epstein and Summers as Confidantes

Numerous communications between found guilty child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and former US treasury head Larry Summers were released this week, revealing the pair acted as trusted allies.

Their correspondence, dating from 2013 to early 2019, show the two men sharing private – and at times unseemly – opinions on political matters and personal connections.

“I’m trying to figure why [the] American elite think if u murder your baby by physical abuse and abandonment it must be irrelevant to your acceptance 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 physical abuse and neglect it must be irrelevant to your entry to Harvard,”} Summers emailed to Epstein in a 2017 message. However hit on a few women 10 years ago and can’t work at a network or think tank. DO NOT SHARE THIS INSIGHT.”

Back then, Harvard University was grappling with an admissions discussion after a once incarcerated woman’s enrollment to a PhD program. Summers, a ex- president of the university who lost his position amid a controversy after making sexist comments about women scholars, added in the email to Epstein: I noted that half of the IQ in [the] world was held by women without stating they are more than 51 percent of population.”

Summers was previously a key player in the Democratic Party circles – a one-time treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the primary architects of Barack Obama’s response to the market collapse, and a committed voice in the liberal commentariat. But concerns have remained about his connection with Epstein, a former associate of Donald Trump. Epstein was alleged to have run a wide-ranging child sex trafficking operation before his death in prison in 2019 in New York City.

Following publication of a previous batch of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 report, a spokesperson for Summers commented 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 knew about conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In response, Conservative lawmakers published a larger collection of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.

The released materials show that Summers kept up friendly 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 look into Epstein’s “participation and association” with Summers, among other well-known liberal leaders and business leaders.

In the emails, Summers and Epstein converse on politics – especially Summers’s disdain for Trump – as well as the details of philanthropic social networking – and women. Summers, 70, confided in Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his advances toward an unnamed woman, and being turned down.

“shes smart. making you pay for past errors,” Epstein wrote 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 affirmed 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 appointed a visiting fellow to conduct research. The university later concluded Epstein “lacked the academic qualifications visiting fellows usually possess and his application proposed a course of study Epstein was not prepared to pursue”.

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

At that point Obama’s profile was growing. Summers would later secure appointment as director of the White House economic advisory body from January 2009 until November 2010.

After Summers departed 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 gifts to projects associated with Summers’s wife, and the two men met a dozen times between 2013 and 2016, often for dinner.

After reporting about Epstein’s donations emerged, New’s charity made a donation “in excess” of that received to combatting sex trafficking organizations.