Revealed Exchanges Show Jeffrey Epstein and Summers as Close Associates

Numerous messages between adjudicated sex criminal Jeffrey Epstein and one-time US finance chief Larry Summers have emerged this week, showing the pair were confidants.

These exchanges, covering 2013 to early 2019, show the two men discussing intimate – and at times improper – opinions on politics and interpersonal dynamics.

“I’m trying to determine why [the] American elite think if u murder your baby by beating and neglect it must be not a factor to your acceptance to Harvard,”|“I’m trying to|I am attempting to|I'm struggling to} figure why [the] American elite believe if u kill your baby by beating and abandonment it must be unimportant to your admission to Harvard,”} Summers stated to Epstein in a 2017 email. “But made advances toward a few women 10 years ago and are unable to work at a network or think tank. DO NOT SHARE THIS OBSERVATION.”

At that time, Harvard University was dealing 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 gender-biased comments about women scholars, went on to say in the email to Epstein: “I observed that half of the IQ in [the] world was possessed by women without noting they are more than 51 percent of society.”

Summers was previously a key player in liberal circles – a one-time treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the key engineers of Barack Obama’s approach to the market collapse, and a committed voice in the progressive media. But questions have remained about his relationship with Epstein, a long-standing associate of Donald Trump. Epstein was accused of 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 said that he “profoundly regrets being in contact with Epstein after his legal finding”.

Left-leaning lawmakers disclosed emails from the Epstein estate this week that suggest Epstein thought Trump was aware of conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In response, GOP lawmakers issued a more extensive collection of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.

These records show that Summers maintained congenial contact with the found guilty child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the most recent email exchange happening only months before Epstein’s detention.

Trump stated on Truth Social on Friday that he would be asking the Department of Justice and the FBI to look into Epstein’s “role and relationship” with Summers, among other influential liberal leaders and corporate executives.

In the emails, Summers and Epstein converse on politics – notably Summers’s disdain for Trump – as well as the particulars of philanthropic social networking – and women. Summers, 70, confided in Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his romantic gestures toward an unidentified woman, and being rebuffed.

“shes smart. making you pay for past errors,” Epstein responded 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 restated his remorse in a recent statement. “There are many things I regret in my life,” he said. “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 associated programs between 1998 and 2008, and was appointed a visiting fellow to carry out research. The university later concluded Epstein “was missing the educational background visiting fellows normally possess and his application proposed a course of study Epstein was not prepared to pursue”.

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

By that time Obama’s star was rising. Summers would ultimately win appointment as director of the White House economic advisory body from January 2009 until November 2010.

After Summers exited the White House, he began requesting Epstein for philanthropic advice for his wife, Elisa New, a Harvard professor working on a poetry project. Epstein and his foundations made gifts to projects associated with Summers’s wife, and the two men got together a dozen 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 anti-exploitation organizations.