Uncovered Communications Illustrate Epstein and Summers as Close Associates

Multiple communications between adjudicated sex criminal Jeffrey Epstein and ex- US Treasury Secretary Larry Summers were released this week, revealing the pair acted as trusted allies.

Their correspondence, dating from 2013 to early 2019, demonstrate the two men sharing private – and at times questionable – opinions on public affairs and personal connections.

I'm struggling to figure why [the] American elite think if u take the life of 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} determine why [the] American elite think if u murder your baby by violence and abandonment it must be unimportant to your admission to Harvard,”} Summers wrote to Epstein in a 2017 message. “But flirted with 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 grappling with an admissions debate after a previously incarcerated woman’s enrollment to a PhD program. Summers, a former president of the university who stepped down amid a scandal after making sexist comments about women in academia, went on to say in the correspondence 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 the populace.”

Summers was once a prominent figure in liberal circles – a one-time treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the key engineers of Barack Obama’s response to the market collapse, and a committed presence in the liberal commentariat. But concerns have lingered about his connection with Epstein, a long-standing connection of Donald Trump. Epstein was alleged to have run a extensive child sex trafficking operation before his passing in jail in 2019 in New York City.

Following disclosure of a earlier tranche of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 report, a agent for Summers commented that he “deeply regrets being in contact with Epstein after his guilty verdict”.

Democratic lawmakers disclosed emails from the Epstein estate this week that indicate Epstein believed Trump was aware of conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In retaliation, GOP lawmakers issued a more extensive batch of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.

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

Trump posted on Truth Social on Friday that he would be asking the Department of Justice and the FBI to examine Epstein’s “involvement and relationship” with Summers, among other influential Democrats and industry figures.

In the emails, Summers and Epstein talk about politics – particularly Summers’s dislike for Trump – as well as the particulars of charitable social networking – and women. Summers, 70, disclosed to Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his advances toward an unidentified woman, and being turned down.

“she is clever. ensuring you atone for previous missteps,” Epstein replied 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 sorrow in a recent statement. “I have great regrets 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 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 determined Epstein “was missing the educational background visiting fellows usually possess and his application suggested 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.

By that time Obama’s profile was growing. Summers would later win 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 non-profit advice for his wife, Elisa New, a Harvard professor pursuing 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 came out, New’s charity made a donation “more than” of that received to anti-sex-trafficking organizations.