Revealed Exchanges Depict Jeffrey Epstein and Summers as Trusted Friends

Numerous exchanges between found guilty sex criminal Jeffrey Epstein and one-time US treasury head Larry Summers were released this week, indicating the pair were trusted allies.

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

I am attempting to understand why [the] American elite think if u take the life of your baby by physical abuse and abandonment it must be not a factor to your admission to Harvard,”|“I’m trying to|I am attempting to|I'm struggling to} figure why [the] American elite feel if u murder your baby by violence and abandonment it must be irrelevant to your admission to Harvard,”} Summers wrote to Epstein in a 2017 communication. “But made advances toward a few women 10 years ago and cannot work at a network or think tank. KEEP CONFIDENTIAL THIS IDEA.”

During that period, Harvard University was grappling with an acceptance discussion after a previously incarcerated woman’s acceptance to a PhD program. Summers, a one-time president of the university who lost his position amid a scandal after making discriminatory comments about women scholars, continued in the email to Epstein: I pointed out that half of the IQ in [the] world was possessed by women without mentioning they are more than 51 percent of society.”

Summers was once a prominent figure in Democratic circles – a ex- treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the primary architects of Barack Obama’s handling to the economic downturn, and a committed voice in the progressive media. But doubts have remained about his relationship with Epstein, a longtime associate of Donald Trump. Epstein was charged with a broad child sex trafficking operation before his death in custody in 2019 in New York City.

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

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

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

Trump posted on Truth Social on Friday that he would be requesting the Department of Justice and the FBI to investigate Epstein’s “involvement and association” with Summers, among other influential Democrats and corporate executives.

In the emails, Summers and Epstein talk about politics – particularly Summers’s disdain for Trump – as well as the particulars of non-profit social networking – and women. Summers, 70, disclosed to Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his overtures toward an anonymous woman, and being turned down.

“shes smart. making you pay for past errors,” Epstein wrote in an exchange on 16 March. “disregard the 'daddy' comment, I'm going out with the motorcycle guy, you handled it well.. irritation indicates concern., no complaining demonstrated strength.”

Summers restated his remorse 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 found Epstein “lacked the academic qualifications visiting fellows typically possess and his application proposed a course of study Epstein was unqualified to pursue”.

Harvard only stopped accepting Epstein’s donations after he confessed to child sex offenses in 2008.

By then Obama’s profile was growing. Summers would ultimately receive appointment as director of the White House economic advisory body from January 2009 until November 2010.

After Summers left the White House, he began soliciting Epstein for philanthropic advice for his wife, Elisa New, a Harvard professor working on a poetry project. Epstein and his foundations made philanthropic donations to projects linked to Summers’s wife, and the two men got together a dozen times between 2013 and 2016, often for dinner.

After media coverage about Epstein’s donations came out, New’s charity made a donation “above and beyond” of that received to anti-sex-trafficking organizations.