Revealed Communications Depict Epstein and Summers as Trusted Friends

A series of communications between convicted child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and former US finance chief Larry Summers were released this week, indicating the pair were confidants.

The messages, covering 2013 to early 2019, demonstrate the two men discussing private – and at times questionable – opinions on public affairs and relationships.

“I’m trying to understand why [the] American elite think if u take the life of your baby by beating and abandonment it must be irrelevant 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 kill your baby by violence and desertion it must be not a factor to your admission to Harvard,”} Summers stated to Epstein in a 2017 email. Yet hit on a few women 10 years ago and can’t work at a network or think tank. DO NOT SHARE THIS OBSERVATION.”

During that period, Harvard University was grappling with an enrollment debate after a previously incarcerated woman’s admission to a PhD program. Summers, a former president of the university who lost his position amid a scandal after making gender-biased comments about women scholars, went on to say in the email to Epstein: I noted that half of the IQ in [the] world was held by women without stating they are more than 51 percent of society.”

Summers was once a leading light in liberal circles – a ex- treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the main architects of Barack Obama’s response to the financial crisis, and a stalwart presence in the left-leaning punditry. But doubts have lingered about his relationship with Epstein, a longtime associate of Donald Trump. Epstein was alleged to have run a extensive child sex trafficking operation before his demise in jail in 2019 in New York City.

Following publication of a earlier set of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 piece, a representative for Summers said that he “profoundly regrets being in contact with Epstein after his guilty verdict”.

Democratic lawmakers released emails from the Epstein estate this week that imply Epstein was of the opinion Trump was had knowledge of conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In reply, Republican lawmakers issued a more extensive collection of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.

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

Trump wrote on Truth Social on Friday that he would be asking the Department of Justice and the FBI to investigate Epstein’s “role and association” with Summers, among other prominent Democratic figures and business leaders.

In the emails, Summers and Epstein talk about politics – particularly Summers’s disdain 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 unnamed woman, and being turned down.

“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 restated his regret 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 appointed a visiting fellow to conduct research. The university later found Epstein “was missing the educational background visiting fellows typically possess and his application suggested 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.

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

After Summers left the White House, he began soliciting Epstein for charitable advice for his wife, Elisa New, a Harvard professor working on a poetry project. Epstein and his foundations made charitable contributions 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 emerged, New’s charity made a donation “above and beyond” of that received to anti-exploitation organizations.