Revealed Exchanges Illustrate Epstein and Summers as Trusted Friends

A series of communications between convicted sex criminal Jeffrey Epstein and former US Treasury Secretary Larry Summers were released this week, indicating the pair served as trusted allies.

The messages, spanning 2013 to early 2019, reveal the two men discussing private – and at times unseemly – views on political matters and relationships.

“I’m trying to determine why [the] American elite feel if u kill your baby by beating and abandonment it must be unimportant to your entry 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 physical abuse and desertion it must be not a factor to your acceptance to Harvard,”} Summers wrote to Epstein in a 2017 communication. Yet flirted with a few women 10 years ago and cannot work at a network or think tank. DO NOT REPEAT THIS INSIGHT.”

At that time, Harvard University was wrestling with an admissions controversy after a formerly incarcerated woman’s admission to a PhD program. Summers, a ex- president of the university who lost his position amid a scandal after making gender-biased comments about women in academia, added in the message 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 the populace.”

Summers was once a leading light in the Democratic Party circles – a former treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the primary designers of Barack Obama’s approach to the financial crisis, and a committed figure in the left-leaning punditry. But concerns have remained about his connection with Epstein, a former contact of Donald Trump. Epstein was accused of a wide-ranging exploitation operation before his death in jail in 2019 in New York City.

Following disclosure of a prior tranche of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 article, a agent for Summers said that he “profoundly regrets being in contact with Epstein after his conviction”.

Democratic Party lawmakers released emails from the Epstein estate this week that indicate Epstein believed Trump was knew about conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In retaliation, GOP lawmakers published a more extensive tranche of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.

The documents show that Summers maintained friendly contact with the found guilty child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the final 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 “role and association” with Summers, among other well-known Democratic figures and corporate executives.

In the emails, Summers and Epstein converse on politics – particularly Summers’s contempt for Trump – as well as the details of non-profit social networking – and women. Summers, 70, shared with Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his advances toward an anonymous woman, and being turned down.

“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. “I have great regrets in my life,” he said. “As previously stated, my connection to Jeffrey Epstein represented a serious lapse in judgment.”

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 found Epstein “was missing the educational background visiting fellows normally possess and his application proposed a course of study Epstein was unqualified to pursue”.

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

At that point Obama’s career was advancing. Summers would ultimately win appointment as director of the White House economic advisory body from January 2009 until November 2010.

After Summers departed 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 got together a twelve times between 2013 and 2016, often for dinner.

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