Disclosed Exchanges Depict Epstein and Summers as Close Associates

Multiple communications between convicted child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and former US Treasury Secretary Larry Summers came to light this week, indicating the pair were confidants.

The messages, covering 2013 to early 2019, show the two men sharing personal – and at times questionable – opinions on political matters and personal connections.

“I’m trying to determine why [the] American elite feel if u murder your baby by violence and abandonment it must be unimportant to your acceptance to Harvard,”|“I’m trying to|I am attempting to|I'm struggling to} figure why [the] American elite believe if u murder your baby by beating and neglect it must be unimportant to your acceptance to Harvard,”} Summers wrote 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. KEEP CONFIDENTIAL THIS OBSERVATION.”

Back then, Harvard University was grappling with an acceptance discussion after a once incarcerated woman’s enrollment to a PhD program. Summers, a former president of the university who lost his position amid a controversy after making discriminatory comments about women scholars, went on to say in the message to Epstein: I noted that half of the IQ in [the] world was owned by women without mentioning they are more than 51 percent of population.”

Summers was once a prominent figure in Democratic circles – a former treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the primary engineers of Barack Obama’s response to the financial crisis, and a stalwart figure in the liberal commentariat. But questions have lingered about his association with Epstein, a longtime connection of Donald Trump. Epstein was charged with a broad sex trafficking of minors operation before his passing in jail in 2019 in New York City.

Following publication of a earlier batch of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 report, a spokesperson for Summers commented that he “is very sorry for being in contact with Epstein after his legal finding”.

Left-leaning lawmakers made public emails from the Epstein estate this week that indicate Epstein thought Trump was aware of conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In retaliation, Conservative lawmakers issued a much bigger batch of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.

The released materials show that Summers continued congenial contact with the adjudicated child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the most recent email exchange taking place only months before Epstein’s apprehension.

Trump stated on Truth Social on Friday that he would be instructing the Department of Justice and the FBI to investigate Epstein’s “involvement and relationship” with Summers, among other well-known liberal leaders and corporate executives.

In the emails, Summers and Epstein converse on politics – especially Summers’s dislike for Trump – as well as the aspects of non-profit social networking – and women. Summers, 70, shared with Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his advances toward an unnamed woman, and being rejected.

“shes smart. making you pay for past errors,” 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 have great regrets in my life,” he wrote. “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 donated more than $9m to Harvard and its affiliated programs between 1998 and 2008, and was designated a visiting fellow to conduct research. The university later concluded Epstein “did not have the scholarly credentials visiting fellows normally possess and his application outlined a course of study Epstein was unqualified to pursue”.

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

At that point Obama’s profile was growing. Summers would ultimately win appointment as director of the White House NEC from January 2009 until November 2010.

After Summers left the White House, he began requesting Epstein for non-profit advice for his wife, Elisa New, a Harvard professor pursuing a poetry project. Epstein and his foundations made philanthropic donations 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 came out, New’s charity made a donation “in excess” of that received to anti-sex-trafficking organizations.