Uncovered Exchanges Show Jeffrey Epstein and Summers as Trusted Friends

Multiple messages between found guilty child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and former US treasury head Larry Summers have emerged this week, revealing the pair acted as confidants.

These exchanges, dating from 2013 to early 2019, show the two men discussing intimate – and at times improper – opinions on public affairs and interpersonal dynamics.

“I’m trying to understand why [the] American elite think if u take the life of your baby by violence and desertion it must be irrelevant 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 take the life of your baby by physical abuse and abandonment it must be unimportant to your entry to Harvard,”} Summers stated 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. KEEP CONFIDENTIAL THIS OBSERVATION.”

At that time, Harvard University was wrestling with an acceptance discussion after a formerly incarcerated woman’s acceptance to a PhD program. Summers, a one-time president of the university who resigned amid a uproar after making gender-biased comments about women scholars, continued in the message 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 once a prominent figure in liberal circles – a former treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the main architects of Barack Obama’s response to the economic downturn, and a steadfast presence in the left-leaning punditry. But doubts have lingered about his relationship with Epstein, a long-standing contact of Donald Trump. Epstein was accused of a extensive sex trafficking of minors operation before his death in prison in 2019 in New York City.

Following publication of a earlier 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 guilty verdict”.

Democratic lawmakers released emails from the Epstein estate this week that indicate Epstein thought Trump was knew about conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In response, GOP lawmakers issued a larger collection of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.

These records show that Summers maintained congenial contact with the found guilty child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the most recent email exchange happening only months before Epstein’s arrest.

Trump stated on Truth Social on Friday that he would be instructing the Department of Justice and the FBI to look into Epstein’s “participation and connection” with Summers, among other prominent Democrats and corporate executives.

In the emails, Summers and Epstein discuss politics – notably Summers’s contempt for Trump – as well as the aspects of charitable social networking – and women. Summers, 70, disclosed to Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his overtures toward an anonymous woman, and being rebuffed.

“she is clever. ensuring you atone for previous missteps,” 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 reiterated his sorrow in a recent statement. “I harbor significant regrets in my lifetime,” he said. “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 designated a visiting fellow to perform research. The university later determined Epstein “did not have the educational background visiting fellows typically possess and his application outlined a course of study Epstein was ill-equipped to pursue”.

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

By that time Obama’s profile was growing. Summers would eventually 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 asking Epstein for non-profit advice for his wife, Elisa New, a Harvard professor developing a poetry project. Epstein and his foundations made charitable contributions to projects connected 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 “above and beyond” of that received to anti-exploitation organizations.