Revealed Communications Depict Jeffrey Epstein and Summers as Close Associates

Numerous messages between convicted offender Jeffrey Epstein and former US treasury head Larry Summers have emerged this week, indicating the pair acted as trusted allies.

The messages, spanning 2013 to early 2019, demonstrate the two men sharing intimate – and at times questionable – views on politics and personal connections.

I'm struggling to determine why [the] American elite feel if u murder your baby by beating 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} determine why [the] American elite feel if u kill your baby by physical abuse and abandonment it must be unimportant to your entry to Harvard,”} Summers wrote to Epstein in a 2017 email. “But made advances toward a few women 10 years ago and can’t work at a network or think tank. KEEP CONFIDENTIAL THIS IDEA.”

At that time, Harvard University was wrestling with an acceptance discussion after a formerly incarcerated woman’s enrollment to a PhD program. Summers, a former president of the university who stepped down amid a controversy after making discriminatory comments about female academics, continued in the message to Epstein: I noted that half of the IQ in [the] world was owned by women without stating they are more than 51 percent of population.”

Summers was once a key player in the Democratic Party circles – a one-time treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the main designers of Barack Obama’s approach to the financial crisis, and a committed voice in the left-leaning punditry. But questions have persisted about his connection with Epstein, a long-standing connection of Donald Trump. Epstein was charged with a broad sex trafficking of minors operation before his demise in prison in 2019 in New York City.

Following publication of a previous set of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 article, a representative for Summers said that he “deeply regrets being in contact with Epstein after his conviction”.

Democratic Party lawmakers disclosed emails from the Epstein estate this week that suggest Epstein was of the opinion Trump was knew about conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In reply, GOP lawmakers issued a more extensive batch 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 final email exchange taking place 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 examine Epstein’s “participation and association” with Summers, among other well-known liberal leaders and business leaders.

In the emails, Summers and Epstein discuss politics – particularly Summers’s dislike for Trump – as well as the aspects of charitable social networking – and women. Summers, 70, shared with Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his romantic gestures toward an unidentified woman, and being rejected.

“she's intelligent. holding you accountable for past mistakes,” Epstein responded 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 restated his sorrow in a recent statement. “I have great regrets in my life,” he wrote. “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 conduct research. The university later concluded Epstein “lacked the academic qualifications visiting fellows typically possess and his application suggested a course of study Epstein was ill-equipped to pursue”.

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

By that time Obama’s profile was growing. Summers would later win appointment as director of the White House NEC 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 met a multiple times between 2013 and 2016, often for dinner.

After media coverage about Epstein’s donations surfaced, New’s charity made a donation “more than” of that received to combatting sex trafficking organizations.