Revealed Communications Depict Jeffrey Epstein and Summers as Close Associates

A series of exchanges between found guilty sex criminal Jeffrey Epstein and one-time US finance chief Larry Summers have emerged this week, indicating the pair acted as close contacts.

Their correspondence, covering 2013 to early 2019, demonstrate the two men discussing private – and at times questionable – opinions on politics and interpersonal dynamics.

I'm struggling to understand why [the] American elite feel if u take the life of your baby by beating and abandonment it must be unimportant to your entry to Harvard,”|“I’m trying to|I am attempting to|I'm struggling to} figure why [the] American elite feel if u murder your baby by physical abuse and desertion it must be unimportant to your admission to Harvard,”} Summers wrote to Epstein in a 2017 email. Yet made advances toward a few women 10 years ago and cannot work at a network or think tank. DO NOT SHARE THIS INSIGHT.”

At that time, Harvard University was dealing with an enrollment debate after a formerly incarcerated woman’s enrollment to a PhD program. Summers, a ex- president of the university who lost his position amid a scandal after making discriminatory comments about women scholars, added in the message to Epstein: I pointed out that half of the IQ in [the] world was held by women without mentioning they are more than 51 percent of population.”

Summers was previously a key player in liberal circles – a one-time treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the main architects of Barack Obama’s approach to the market collapse, and a committed presence in the left-leaning punditry. But concerns have lingered about his connection with Epstein, a former associate of Donald Trump. Epstein was charged with a broad sex trafficking of minors operation before his death in jail in 2019 in New York City.

Following disclosure of a prior batch of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 report, a spokesperson for Summers commented that he “is very sorry for being in contact with Epstein after his guilty verdict”.

Democratic Party lawmakers disclosed 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 issued a larger batch of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.

The released materials show that Summers kept up friendly contact with the convicted child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the most recent email exchange occurring 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 association” with Summers, among other prominent Democratic figures and industry figures.

In the emails, Summers and Epstein discuss politics – particularly Summers’s disdain for Trump – as well as the details of non-profit social networking – and women. Summers, 70, confided in Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his advances toward an unnamed woman, and being rebuffed.

“shes smart. making you pay for past errors,” Epstein replied 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 affirmed his regret in a recent statement. “I have great regrets in my life,” he said. “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 donated more than $9m to Harvard and its related programs between 1998 and 2008, and was named a visiting fellow to conduct research. The university later determined Epstein “lacked the academic qualifications visiting fellows usually 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 career was advancing. Summers would ultimately secure appointment as director of the White House NEC from January 2009 until November 2010.

After Summers left the White House, he began soliciting Epstein for philanthropic advice for his wife, Elisa New, a Harvard professor developing a poetry project. Epstein and his foundations made philanthropic donations to projects associated with Summers’s wife, and the two men saw each other a twelve times between 2013 and 2016, often for dinner.

After media coverage about Epstein’s donations emerged, New’s charity made a donation “above and beyond” of that received to anti-sex-trafficking organizations.