Revealed Communications Illustrate Jeffrey Epstein and Summers as Confidantes

A series of communications between adjudicated sex criminal Jeffrey Epstein and former US finance chief Larry Summers came to light this week, showing the pair served as confidants.

Their correspondence, dating from 2013 to early 2019, demonstrate the two men sharing personal – and at times improper – perspectives on politics and personal connections.

“I’m trying to figure why [the] American elite think if u kill your baby by physical abuse and neglect it must be irrelevant 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 beating and abandonment it must be irrelevant to your acceptance to Harvard,”} Summers emailed to Epstein in a 2017 communication. Yet flirted with a few women 10 years ago and can’t work at a network or think tank. KEEP CONFIDENTIAL THIS OBSERVATION.”

During that period, Harvard University was wrestling with an enrollment debate after a previously incarcerated woman’s enrollment to a PhD program. Summers, a one-time president of the university who stepped down amid a scandal after making sexist comments about women in academia, continued in the email to Epstein: I noted that half of the IQ in [the] world was owned by women without noting they are more than 51 percent of the populace.”

Summers was once a leading light in liberal circles – a one-time treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the key engineers of Barack Obama’s approach to the economic downturn, and a stalwart voice in the liberal commentariat. But doubts have persisted about his connection with Epstein, a former contact of Donald Trump. Epstein was charged with a broad exploitation operation before his demise in custody in 2019 in New York City.

Following disclosure of a prior set of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 piece, a spokesperson for Summers commented that he “profoundly regrets being in contact with Epstein after his legal finding”.

Democratic lawmakers disclosed 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, Republican lawmakers issued a more extensive batch of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.

The documents show that Summers kept up amicable contact with the adjudicated child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the final email exchange taking place only months before Epstein’s detention.

Trump stated on Truth Social on Friday that he would be requesting the Department of Justice and the FBI to look into Epstein’s “involvement and relationship” with Summers, among other prominent liberal leaders and business leaders.

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

“shes smart. making you pay for past errors,” 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 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 associated programs between 1998 and 2008, and was appointed a visiting fellow to conduct research. The university later found Epstein “was missing the academic qualifications visiting fellows typically possess and his application proposed a course of study Epstein was not prepared to pursue”.

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

At that point Obama’s star was rising. Summers would later secure appointment as director of the White House NEC 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 charitable contributions to projects linked to Summers’s wife, and the two men saw each other a multiple times between 2013 and 2016, often for dinner.

After reporting about Epstein’s donations emerged, New’s charity made a donation “more than” of that received to combatting sex trafficking organizations.