Revealed Communications Show Jeffrey Epstein and Summers as Confidantes

Multiple communications between convicted child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and one-time US finance chief Larry Summers were released this week, indicating the pair served as confidants.

These exchanges, covering 2013 to early 2019, demonstrate the two men exchanging personal – and at times unseemly – perspectives on public affairs and interpersonal dynamics.

“I’m trying to understand why [the] American elite believe if u take the life of your baby by violence and neglect it must be unimportant to your admission to Harvard,”|“I’m trying to|I am attempting to|I'm struggling to} figure why [the] American elite feel if u kill your baby by beating and neglect it must be unimportant to your acceptance to Harvard,”} Summers stated to Epstein in a 2017 email. However made advances toward a few women 10 years ago and cannot work at a network or think tank. DO NOT SHARE THIS OBSERVATION.”

Back then, Harvard University was wrestling with an enrollment controversy after a formerly incarcerated woman’s enrollment to a PhD program. Summers, a ex- president of the university who stepped down amid a scandal after making discriminatory comments about women in academia, added in the email to Epstein: I pointed out 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 prominent figure in Democratic circles – a one-time treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the primary architects of Barack Obama’s handling to the financial crisis, and a committed voice in the liberal commentariat. But doubts have remained about his association with Epstein, a long-standing contact of Donald Trump. Epstein was accused of a wide-ranging child sex trafficking operation before his death in custody in 2019 in New York City.

Following disclosure of a prior tranche of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 article, a agent for Summers stated 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 was of the opinion Trump was knew about conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In response, GOP lawmakers issued a more extensive tranche of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.

These records show that Summers continued friendly contact with the convicted child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the final email exchange occurring only months before Epstein’s arrest.

Trump posted on Truth Social on Friday that he would be instructing the Department of Justice and the FBI to examine Epstein’s “involvement and connection” with Summers, among other well-known Democratic figures and business leaders.

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

“shes smart. making you pay for past errors,” Epstein replied 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 regret in a recent statement. “There are many things I regret 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 contributed more than $9m to Harvard and its affiliated programs between 1998 and 2008, and was named a visiting fellow to perform research. The university later determined Epstein “lacked the educational background visiting fellows typically 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.

By that time Obama’s career was advancing. Summers would later 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 non-profit advice for his wife, Elisa New, a Harvard professor working on a poetry project. Epstein and his foundations made gifts to projects linked to Summers’s wife, and the two men got together a twelve times between 2013 and 2016, often for dinner.

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