Revealed Communications Illustrate Epstein and Summers as Trusted Friends

A series of exchanges between adjudicated offender Jeffrey Epstein and former US Treasury Secretary Larry Summers were released this week, showing the pair acted as trusted allies.

Their correspondence, spanning 2013 to early 2019, demonstrate the two men sharing personal – and at times unseemly – opinions on politics and interpersonal dynamics.

I'm struggling to determine why [the] American elite feel if u take the life of your baby by beating and abandonment it must be not a factor to your acceptance to Harvard,”|“I’m trying to|I am attempting to|I'm struggling to} understand why [the] American elite think if u kill your baby by physical abuse and desertion it must be irrelevant to your admission to Harvard,”} Summers emailed to Epstein in a 2017 email. However made advances toward a few women 10 years ago and can’t work at a network or think tank. DO NOT REPEAT THIS OBSERVATION.”

Back then, Harvard University was dealing with an acceptance controversy after a previously incarcerated woman’s admission to a PhD program. Summers, a one-time president of the university who resigned amid a uproar after making discriminatory comments about female academics, added in the email to Epstein: “I observed that half of the IQ in [the] world was owned by women without stating they are more than 51 percent of the populace.”

Summers was previously a leading light in liberal circles – a ex- treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the key architects of Barack Obama’s approach to the financial crisis, and a stalwart voice in the liberal commentariat. But doubts have persisted about his association with Epstein, a former associate of Donald Trump. Epstein was alleged to have run a extensive sex trafficking of minors operation before his death in jail in 2019 in New York City.

Following the release of a earlier set of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 article, a agent for Summers commented that he “profoundly regrets being in contact with Epstein after his legal finding”.

Democratic Party lawmakers disclosed emails from the Epstein estate this week that suggest Epstein was of the opinion Trump was had knowledge of conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In retaliation, GOP lawmakers issued a more extensive collection of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.

The released materials show that Summers continued friendly contact with the found guilty child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the last email exchange happening only months before Epstein’s arrest.

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

In the emails, Summers and Epstein talk about politics – notably Summers’s dislike for Trump – as well as the details of non-profit social networking – and women. Summers, 70, shared with Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his overtures toward an unnamed woman, and being turned down.

“shes smart. making you pay for past errors,” Epstein responded 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 restated his regret 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 gave more than $9m to Harvard and its affiliated programs between 1998 and 2008, and was designated a visiting fellow to carry out research. The university later determined Epstein “did not have the scholarly credentials visiting fellows typically possess and his application proposed 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.

At that point Obama’s career was advancing. Summers would eventually receive appointment as director of the White House National Economic Council 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 pursuing a poetry project. Epstein and his foundations made gifts to projects associated with Summers’s wife, and the two men got together a twelve times between 2013 and 2016, often for dinner.

After reporting about Epstein’s donations emerged, New’s charity made a donation “more than” of that received to anti-sex-trafficking organizations.