Revealed Exchanges Illustrate Epstein and Summers as Close Associates

Multiple communications between found guilty child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and ex- US finance chief Larry Summers have emerged this week, revealing the pair acted as close contacts.

Their correspondence, covering 2013 to early 2019, demonstrate the two men discussing personal – and at times improper – opinions on political matters and interpersonal dynamics.

“I’m trying to understand why [the] American elite feel if u take the life of your baby by violence and abandonment it must be not a factor to your admission to Harvard,”|“I’m trying to|I am attempting to|I'm struggling to} figure why [the] American elite think if u kill your baby by violence and desertion it must be not a factor to your acceptance to Harvard,”} Summers wrote to Epstein in a 2017 email. However hit on a few women 10 years ago and cannot work at a network or think tank. KEEP CONFIDENTIAL THIS IDEA.”

At that time, Harvard University was wrestling with an admissions debate 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 sexist comments about female academics, added in the email to Epstein: “I observed that half of the IQ in [the] world was possessed by women without stating they are more than 51 percent of society.”

Summers was previously a prominent figure in Democratic circles – a former treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the primary architects of Barack Obama’s approach to the market collapse, and a stalwart presence in the liberal commentariat. But doubts have persisted about his connection with Epstein, a long-standing contact of Donald Trump. Epstein was accused of a broad sex trafficking of minors operation before his passing in prison in 2019 in New York City.

Following the release of a previous tranche of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 article, a agent for Summers commented that he “is very sorry for being in contact with Epstein after his legal finding”.

Left-leaning lawmakers disclosed emails from the Epstein estate this week that imply Epstein believed Trump was aware of conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In retaliation, Conservative lawmakers issued a larger batch of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.

The released materials show that Summers maintained amicable contact with the convicted child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the last email exchange happening only months before Epstein’s arrest.

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

In the emails, Summers and Epstein converse on politics – especially Summers’s contempt for Trump – as well as the details of charitable social networking – and women. Summers, 70, confided in Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his overtures toward an anonymous woman, and being rebuffed.

“shes smart. making you pay for past errors,” Epstein replied in an exchange on 16 March. “disregard the 'daddy' comment, I'm going out with the motorcycle guy, you handled it well.. irritation indicates concern., no complaining demonstrated strength.”

Summers affirmed his remorse in a recent statement. “There are many things I regret 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 gave more than $9m to Harvard and its associated programs between 1998 and 2008, and was named a visiting fellow to carry out research. The university later found Epstein “lacked the academic qualifications visiting fellows normally possess and his application outlined a course of study Epstein was ill-equipped 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 eventually win appointment as director of the White House NEC from January 2009 until November 2010.

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

After media coverage about Epstein’s donations came out, New’s charity made a donation “more than” of that received to anti-exploitation organizations.