Disclosed Exchanges Show Jeffrey Epstein and Summers as Trusted Friends

Numerous communications between found guilty offender Jeffrey Epstein and ex- US finance chief Larry Summers were released this week, showing the pair were confidants.

Their correspondence, spanning 2013 to early 2019, reveal the two men exchanging personal – and at times unseemly – opinions on political matters and interpersonal dynamics.

I'm struggling to figure why [the] American elite believe if u take the life of your baby by physical abuse and desertion it must be irrelevant to your entry to Harvard,”|“I’m trying to|I am attempting to|I'm struggling to} determine why [the] American elite believe if u murder your baby by violence and abandonment it must be unimportant to your entry to Harvard,”} Summers wrote to Epstein in a 2017 email. However hit on a few women 10 years ago and are unable to work at a network or think tank. DO NOT REPEAT THIS OBSERVATION.”

During that period, Harvard University was grappling with an acceptance controversy after a once incarcerated woman’s admission to a PhD program. Summers, a former president of the university who resigned amid a controversy after making sexist comments about women in academia, went on to say in the correspondence to Epstein: I noted that half of the IQ in [the] world was possessed by women without stating they are more than 51 percent of population.”

Summers was previously a prominent figure in the Democratic Party circles – a ex- treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the key designers of Barack Obama’s handling to the financial crisis, and a committed figure in the progressive media. But concerns have remained about his association with Epstein, a long-standing connection of Donald Trump. Epstein was charged with a wide-ranging child sex trafficking operation before his death in custody in 2019 in New York City.

Following disclosure of a previous batch of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 article, a agent for Summers said that he “is very sorry for being in contact with Epstein after his legal finding”.

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

The documents show that Summers continued amicable contact with the adjudicated child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the final email exchange taking place only months before Epstein’s arrest.

Trump wrote on Truth Social on Friday that he would be requesting the Department of Justice and the FBI to investigate Epstein’s “participation and association” with Summers, among other well-known Democratic figures and corporate executives.

In the emails, Summers and Epstein converse on politics – notably Summers’s contempt for Trump – as well as the aspects of non-profit social networking – and women. Summers, 70, shared with Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his advances toward an unnamed woman, and being rebuffed.

“she's intelligent. holding you accountable for past mistakes,” 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. “As previously stated, my connection to Jeffrey Epstein represented a serious lapse in judgment.”

Summers was president of Harvard University from 2001 to 2006. Epstein gave more than $9m to Harvard and its affiliated programs between 1998 and 2008, and was named a visiting fellow to perform research. The university later determined Epstein “was missing the scholarly credentials visiting fellows typically possess and his application suggested a course of study Epstein was not prepared to pursue”.

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

At that point 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 departed the White House, he began soliciting Epstein for philanthropic advice for his wife, Elisa New, a Harvard professor pursuing a poetry project. Epstein and his foundations made charitable contributions to projects connected to Summers’s wife, and the two men saw each other a multiple times between 2013 and 2016, often for dinner.

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