Disclosed Communications Show Jeffrey Epstein and Larry Summers as Close Associates

Numerous messages between found guilty offender Jeffrey Epstein and former US finance chief Larry Summers were released this week, revealing the pair served as close contacts.

These exchanges, dating from 2013 to early 2019, reveal the two men sharing personal – and at times improper – perspectives on political matters and interpersonal dynamics.

I am attempting to determine why [the] American elite think if u take the life of your baby by physical abuse and desertion 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 feel if u kill your baby by beating and desertion it must be unimportant to your admission to Harvard,”} Summers stated to Epstein in a 2017 message. Yet hit on a few women 10 years ago and can’t work at a network or think tank. DO NOT SHARE THIS INSIGHT.”

Back then, Harvard University was wrestling with an enrollment controversy after a previously incarcerated woman’s enrollment to a PhD program. Summers, a former president of the university who lost his position amid a uproar after making gender-biased comments about women in academia, went on to say in the correspondence 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 society.”

Summers was once a prominent figure in Democratic circles – a former treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the key engineers of Barack Obama’s approach to the financial crisis, and a steadfast voice in the progressive media. But questions have persisted about his association with Epstein, a long-standing connection of Donald Trump. Epstein was alleged to have run a broad exploitation operation before his death in jail in 2019 in New York City.

Following disclosure of a earlier tranche of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 article, a spokesperson for Summers said that he “is very sorry for being in contact with Epstein after his legal finding”.

Left-leaning lawmakers released emails from the Epstein estate this week that indicate Epstein thought Trump was knew about conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In retaliation, Conservative lawmakers published a larger collection of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.

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

Trump posted on Truth Social on Friday that he would be requesting the Department of Justice and the FBI to look into Epstein’s “role and connection” with Summers, among other prominent liberal leaders and industry figures.

In the emails, Summers and Epstein converse on politics – especially Summers’s disdain for Trump – as well as the details of philanthropic social networking – and women. Summers, 70, disclosed to Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his overtures toward an unidentified woman, and being rejected.

“shes smart. making you pay for past errors,” Epstein wrote in an exchange on 16 March. “overlook the 'daddy' remark, I'm dating the motorcycle guy, you responded appropriately.. frustration signals affection., no protests revealed fortitude.”

Summers reiterated his remorse in a recent statement. “There are many things I regret in my life,” 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 affiliated programs between 1998 and 2008, and was appointed a visiting fellow to carry out research. The university later determined Epstein “was missing the educational background visiting fellows usually possess and his application outlined 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.

At that point Obama’s star was rising. Summers would eventually win appointment as director of the White House National Economic Council from January 2009 until November 2010.

After Summers exited 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 charitable contributions to projects linked to Summers’s wife, and the two men got together a multiple times between 2013 and 2016, often for dinner.

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