Disclosed Exchanges Show Jeffrey Epstein and Summers as Trusted Friends

Multiple messages between adjudicated sex criminal Jeffrey Epstein and one-time US treasury head Larry Summers were released this week, revealing the pair acted as close contacts.

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

“I’m trying to determine why [the] American elite feel if u kill your baby by violence 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 believe if u murder your baby by violence and desertion it must be unimportant to your entry to Harvard,”} Summers stated to Epstein in a 2017 communication. “But flirted with a few women 10 years ago and can’t work at a network or think tank. DO NOT SHARE THIS OBSERVATION.”

Back then, Harvard University was grappling with an acceptance debate after a formerly incarcerated woman’s admission to a PhD program. Summers, a former president of the university who resigned amid a scandal after making sexist 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 noting they are more than 51 percent of society.”

Summers was at one time a key player in Democratic circles – a ex- treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the main architects of Barack Obama’s handling to the financial crisis, and a steadfast voice in the left-leaning punditry. But doubts have persisted about his connection with Epstein, a long-standing associate of Donald Trump. Epstein was alleged to have run a extensive sex trafficking of minors operation before his demise in jail in 2019 in New York City.

Following disclosure of a earlier batch of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 report, a representative for Summers commented that he “deeply regrets being in contact with Epstein after his conviction”.

Left-leaning lawmakers made public emails from the Epstein estate this week that indicate Epstein was of the opinion Trump was had knowledge of conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In reply, GOP lawmakers released a much bigger batch of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.

The documents show that Summers maintained congenial contact with the found guilty child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the last email exchange occurring only months before Epstein’s detention.

Trump wrote on Truth Social on Friday that he would be asking the Department of Justice and the FBI to investigate Epstein’s “participation and relationship” with Summers, among other well-known Democratic figures and industry figures.

In the emails, Summers and Epstein talk about politics – especially Summers’s dislike for Trump – as well as the aspects of philanthropic social networking – and women. Summers, 70, shared with Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his advances toward an anonymous woman, and being turned down.

“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 affirmed his regret in a recent statement. “I harbor significant regrets in my lifetime,” he commented. “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 associated programs between 1998 and 2008, and was designated a visiting fellow to conduct research. The university later determined Epstein “lacked the educational background visiting fellows typically possess and his application proposed a course of study Epstein was not prepared to pursue”.

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

By then Obama’s star was rising. Summers would later win appointment as director of the White House economic advisory body from January 2009 until November 2010.

After Summers left the White House, he began asking Epstein for philanthropic advice for his wife, Elisa New, a Harvard professor working on a poetry project. Epstein and his foundations made gifts to projects connected to Summers’s wife, and the two men saw each other a multiple times between 2013 and 2016, often for dinner.

After news about Epstein’s donations came out, New’s charity made a donation “in excess” of that received to anti-sex-trafficking organizations.