Disclosed Communications Depict Epstein and Summers as Close Associates

A series of communications between found guilty sex criminal Jeffrey Epstein and former US finance chief Larry Summers were released this week, indicating the pair acted as confidants.

The messages, dating from 2013 to early 2019, show the two men sharing personal – and at times unseemly – perspectives on politics and personal connections.

“I’m trying to determine why [the] American elite feel if u kill your baby by physical abuse and desertion it must be not a factor to your acceptance to Harvard,”|“I’m trying to|I am attempting to|I'm struggling to} understand why [the] American elite think if u take the life of your baby by beating and desertion it must be unimportant to your acceptance to Harvard,”} Summers wrote 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. DO NOT REPEAT THIS IDEA.”

Back then, Harvard University was grappling with an acceptance discussion after a formerly incarcerated woman’s acceptance to a PhD program. Summers, a ex- president of the university who lost his position amid a uproar after making gender-biased comments about female academics, went on to say in the email to Epstein: I pointed out that half of the IQ in [the] world was held by women without mentioning they are more than 51 percent of the populace.”

Summers was at one time a prominent figure in Democratic circles – a ex- treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the primary engineers of Barack Obama’s response to the financial crisis, and a stalwart presence in the left-leaning punditry. But doubts have persisted about his association with Epstein, a former connection of Donald Trump. Epstein was accused of a wide-ranging child sex trafficking operation before his death in jail in 2019 in New York City.

Following disclosure of a previous set of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 report, a agent for Summers said that he “profoundly regrets being in contact with Epstein after his legal finding”.

Democratic Party lawmakers made public emails from the Epstein estate this week that indicate Epstein believed Trump was had knowledge of conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In retaliation, Conservative lawmakers issued a much bigger collection of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.

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

Trump stated on Truth Social on Friday that he would be asking the Department of Justice and the FBI to examine Epstein’s “participation and connection” with Summers, among other influential Democrats and business leaders.

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

“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. “I harbor significant regrets in my lifetime,” 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 donated more than $9m to Harvard and its affiliated programs between 1998 and 2008, and was designated a visiting fellow to perform research. The university later determined Epstein “did not have the scholarly credentials visiting fellows typically possess and his application outlined a course of study Epstein was not prepared to pursue”.

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

By then Obama’s career was advancing. Summers would ultimately secure 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 charitable advice for his wife, Elisa New, a Harvard professor developing a poetry project. Epstein and his foundations made charitable contributions to projects connected to Summers’s wife, and the two men met a multiple times between 2013 and 2016, often for dinner.

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