Uncovered Communications Illustrate Epstein and Summers as Trusted Friends

Numerous communications between convicted offender Jeffrey Epstein and ex- US finance chief Larry Summers were released this week, revealing the pair were confidants.

The messages, covering 2013 to early 2019, show the two men exchanging private – and at times unseemly – views on public affairs and relationships.

I am attempting to determine why [the] American elite feel if u kill your baby by violence and desertion it must be not a factor to your entry 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 beating and desertion it must be irrelevant to your entry to Harvard,”} Summers emailed to Epstein in a 2017 email. Yet hit on a few women 10 years ago and cannot work at a network or think tank. DO NOT REPEAT THIS INSIGHT.”

During that period, Harvard University was wrestling with an acceptance discussion after a previously incarcerated woman’s acceptance to a PhD program. Summers, a former president of the university who lost his position amid a controversy after making discriminatory comments about women in academia, added in the correspondence to Epstein: “I observed that half of the IQ in [the] world was held by women without noting they are more than 51 percent of population.”

Summers was at one time a prominent figure in liberal circles – a former treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the primary engineers of Barack Obama’s response to the economic downturn, and a steadfast presence in the liberal commentariat. But doubts have persisted about his association with Epstein, a former contact of Donald Trump. Epstein was charged with a wide-ranging exploitation operation before his passing in jail in 2019 in New York City.

Following the release of a earlier batch of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 report, a spokesperson for Summers commented that he “deeply regrets being in contact with Epstein after his guilty verdict”.

Democratic lawmakers made public emails from the Epstein estate this week that indicate Epstein was of the opinion Trump was aware of conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In reply, Republican lawmakers released a much bigger tranche of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.

The documents show that Summers continued congenial contact with the adjudicated child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the last email exchange happening only months before Epstein’s apprehension.

Trump wrote on Truth Social on Friday that he would be requesting the Department of Justice and the FBI to look into Epstein’s “role and relationship” with Summers, among other well-known Democrats and industry figures.

In the emails, Summers and Epstein converse on politics – particularly Summers’s disdain for Trump – as well as the details of charitable social networking – and women. Summers, 70, disclosed to Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his overtures toward an unidentified woman, and being turned down.

“she's intelligent. holding you accountable for past mistakes,” 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 affirmed his regret in a recent statement. “I harbor significant regrets in my lifetime,” he said. “As previously stated, my connection to Jeffrey Epstein represented a serious lapse in judgment.”

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 appointed a visiting fellow to carry out research. The university later determined Epstein “was missing the educational background visiting fellows usually possess and his application proposed a course of study Epstein was unqualified to pursue”.

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

By that time Obama’s career was advancing. Summers would eventually receive appointment as director of the White House economic advisory body from January 2009 until November 2010.

After Summers left the White House, he began requesting 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 saw each other a multiple times between 2013 and 2016, often for dinner.

After reporting about Epstein’s donations emerged, New’s charity made a donation “above and beyond” of that received to combatting sex trafficking organizations.