Uncovered Exchanges Show Epstein and Summers as Close Associates

Multiple communications between found guilty child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and one-time US treasury head Larry Summers came to light this week, showing the pair were close contacts.

The messages, dating from 2013 to early 2019, demonstrate the two men exchanging personal – and at times unseemly – opinions on politics and personal connections.

I'm struggling to understand why [the] American elite believe if u kill your baby by beating and abandonment 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 violence and neglect it must be unimportant to your admission to Harvard,”} Summers wrote to Epstein in a 2017 message. “But hit on a few women 10 years ago and can’t work at a network or think tank. KEEP CONFIDENTIAL THIS INSIGHT.”

Back then, Harvard University was dealing with an admissions debate after a once incarcerated woman’s admission to a PhD program. Summers, a one-time 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 message to Epstein: “I observed that half of the IQ in [the] world was possessed by women without mentioning they are more than 51 percent of society.”

Summers was previously a prominent figure in the Democratic Party circles – a former treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the key architects of Barack Obama’s approach to the economic downturn, and a committed figure in the progressive media. But concerns have remained about his association with Epstein, a longtime associate of Donald Trump. Epstein was alleged to have run a broad sex trafficking of minors operation before his passing in jail in 2019 in New York City.

Following publication of a previous batch of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 piece, a representative for Summers said that he “deeply regrets being in contact with Epstein after his legal finding”.

Democratic lawmakers disclosed emails from the Epstein estate this week that suggest Epstein thought Trump was knew about conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In reply, Republican lawmakers issued a much bigger batch of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.

The documents show that Summers maintained amicable contact with the found guilty child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the most recent email exchange taking place only months before Epstein’s apprehension.

Trump posted on Truth Social on Friday that he would be requesting the Department of Justice and the FBI to examine Epstein’s “role and association” with Summers, among other prominent Democratic figures and corporate executives.

In the emails, Summers and Epstein discuss politics – notably 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 romantic gestures toward an anonymous woman, and being rejected.

“she is clever. ensuring you atone for previous missteps,” Epstein wrote 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 reiterated his sorrow in a recent statement. “There are many things I regret in my life,” he commented. “I’ve expressed this previously: my relationship with Jeffrey Epstein was a grave mistake.”

Summers was president of Harvard University from 2001 to 2006. Epstein contributed more than $9m to Harvard and its affiliated programs between 1998 and 2008, and was named a visiting fellow to conduct research. The university later concluded Epstein “lacked the scholarly credentials visiting fellows typically possess and his application suggested a course of study Epstein was unqualified to pursue”.

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

By then Obama’s profile was growing. Summers would ultimately secure appointment as director of the White House National Economic Council from January 2009 until November 2010.

After Summers departed the White House, he began asking Epstein for charitable advice for his wife, Elisa New, a Harvard professor pursuing a poetry project. Epstein and his foundations made charitable contributions to projects linked to Summers’s wife, and the two men got together a dozen times between 2013 and 2016, often for dinner.

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