Disclosed Communications Illustrate Jeffrey Epstein and Summers as Confidantes

A series of messages between adjudicated sex criminal Jeffrey Epstein and one-time US finance chief Larry Summers came to light this week, showing the pair acted as close contacts.

Their correspondence, covering 2013 to early 2019, demonstrate the two men discussing personal – and at times questionable – views on public affairs and interpersonal dynamics.

“I’m trying to determine why [the] American elite believe if u kill your baby by physical abuse and desertion it must be unimportant to your acceptance to Harvard,”|“I’m trying to|I am attempting to|I'm struggling to} understand why [the] American elite believe if u take the life of your baby by physical abuse and neglect it must be irrelevant to your admission to Harvard,”} Summers wrote to Epstein in a 2017 communication. However hit on a few women 10 years ago and are unable to work at a network or think tank. KEEP CONFIDENTIAL THIS IDEA.”

At that time, Harvard University was grappling with an enrollment controversy after a once incarcerated woman’s acceptance to a PhD program. Summers, a one-time president of the university who stepped down amid a controversy after making gender-biased comments about women scholars, continued in the correspondence to Epstein: I pointed out that half of the IQ in [the] world was held by women without stating they are more than 51 percent of the populace.”

Summers was previously a leading light in liberal circles – a one-time treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the primary engineers of Barack Obama’s approach to the financial crisis, and a steadfast figure in the left-leaning punditry. But concerns have persisted about his connection with Epstein, a former connection of Donald Trump. Epstein was charged with a wide-ranging sex trafficking of minors operation before his death in prison in 2019 in New York City.

Following the release of a earlier tranche of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 piece, a representative for Summers stated that he “deeply regrets being in contact with Epstein after his legal finding”.

Democratic 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 reply, Conservative lawmakers issued a larger collection of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.

The documents show that Summers kept up congenial contact with the found guilty child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the final 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 examine Epstein’s “role and connection” with Summers, among other well-known Democrats and corporate executives.

In the emails, Summers and Epstein talk about politics – especially Summers’s contempt for Trump – as well as the particulars 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 rejected.

“she is clever. ensuring you atone for previous missteps,” Epstein wrote 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 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 gave more than $9m to Harvard and its related programs between 1998 and 2008, and was designated a visiting fellow to perform 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 unqualified to pursue”.

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

At that point Obama’s career was advancing. 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 philanthropic advice for his wife, Elisa New, a Harvard professor developing 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 news about Epstein’s donations emerged, New’s charity made a donation “in excess” of that received to combatting sex trafficking organizations.