Disclosed Communications Illustrate Epstein and Summers as Confidantes

Multiple exchanges between found guilty sex criminal Jeffrey Epstein and one-time US Treasury Secretary Larry Summers have emerged this week, showing the pair were confidants.

Their correspondence, dating from 2013 to early 2019, reveal the two men discussing private – and at times unseemly – views on political matters and interpersonal dynamics.

“I’m trying to understand why [the] American elite think if u murder your baby by physical abuse and abandonment it must be unimportant to your acceptance to Harvard,”|“I’m trying to|I am attempting to|I'm struggling to} determine why [the] American elite feel if u murder your baby by beating and desertion it must be unimportant to your entry to Harvard,”} Summers emailed to Epstein in a 2017 communication. “But flirted with a few women 10 years ago and cannot work at a network or think tank. DO NOT SHARE THIS INSIGHT.”

Back then, Harvard University was grappling with an enrollment debate after a previously incarcerated woman’s acceptance to a PhD program. Summers, a former president of the university who resigned amid a uproar after making sexist comments about women in academia, added in the message to Epstein: I pointed out that half of the IQ in [the] world was held by women without noting they are more than 51 percent of society.”

Summers was at one time a key player in Democratic circles – a former treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the main engineers of Barack Obama’s handling to the market collapse, and a committed figure in the liberal commentariat. But concerns have lingered about his relationship with Epstein, a former associate of Donald Trump. Epstein was accused of a extensive child sex trafficking operation before his death in prison in 2019 in New York City.

Following the release of a earlier batch of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 piece, a representative for Summers commented that he “is very sorry for being in contact with Epstein after his guilty verdict”.

Left-leaning lawmakers released emails from the Epstein estate this week that imply Epstein believed Trump was aware of conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In retaliation, GOP lawmakers published a larger collection of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.

These records show that Summers continued amicable contact with the adjudicated child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the final email exchange happening only months before Epstein’s apprehension.

Trump posted on Truth Social on Friday that he would be asking the Department of Justice and the FBI to examine Epstein’s “involvement and relationship” with Summers, among other influential liberal leaders and business leaders.

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

“she is clever. ensuring you atone for previous missteps,” 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. “I have great regrets in my life,” he commented. “As I have said before, my association with Jeffrey Epstein was a major error of judgement.”

Summers was president of Harvard University from 2001 to 2006. Epstein contributed more than $9m to Harvard and its associated programs between 1998 and 2008, and was appointed a visiting fellow to carry out research. The university later concluded Epstein “lacked the academic qualifications visiting fellows typically possess and his application proposed a course of study Epstein was not prepared to pursue”.

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

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

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

After media coverage about Epstein’s donations surfaced, New’s charity made a donation “in excess” of that received to anti-sex-trafficking organizations.