Revealed Exchanges Illustrate Epstein and Summers as Confidantes

Multiple exchanges between found guilty child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and one-time US Treasury Secretary Larry Summers came to light this week, indicating the pair were confidants.

Their correspondence, spanning 2013 to early 2019, reveal the two men sharing intimate – and at times improper – views on political matters and personal connections.

I'm struggling to figure why [the] American elite feel if u kill your baby by violence and desertion it must be not a factor to your entry to Harvard,”|“I’m trying to|I am attempting to|I'm struggling to} understand why [the] American elite believe if u murder your baby by violence and neglect it must be unimportant to your acceptance to Harvard,”} Summers emailed 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. KEEP CONFIDENTIAL THIS IDEA.”

At that time, Harvard University was wrestling with an acceptance controversy after a formerly incarcerated woman’s admission to a PhD program. Summers, a one-time president of the university who resigned amid a uproar after making gender-biased comments about women scholars, continued in the correspondence to Epstein: I noted that half of the IQ in [the] world was owned by women without mentioning they are more than 51 percent of population.”

Summers was at one time a prominent figure in the Democratic Party circles – a one-time treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the main engineers of Barack Obama’s approach to the market collapse, and a stalwart voice in the progressive media. But doubts have remained about his association with Epstein, a former associate of Donald Trump. Epstein was alleged to have run a wide-ranging child sex trafficking operation before his demise in prison in 2019 in New York City.

Following disclosure of a previous tranche of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 report, a representative for Summers stated that he “deeply regrets being in contact with Epstein after his legal finding”.

Democratic Party lawmakers disclosed 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 published a larger tranche of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.

The released materials show that Summers kept up 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 wrote on Truth Social on Friday that he would be instructing the Department of Justice and the FBI to investigate Epstein’s “involvement and association” with Summers, among other prominent Democratic figures and corporate executives.

In the emails, Summers and Epstein discuss politics – particularly Summers’s dislike 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 romantic gestures toward an unnamed woman, and being rejected.

“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 affirmed his remorse in a recent statement. “There are many things I regret in my life,” he wrote. “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 contributed 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 usually possess and his application suggested a course of study Epstein was ill-equipped to pursue”.

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

By that time Obama’s career was advancing. Summers would ultimately receive appointment as director of the White House National Economic Council from January 2009 until November 2010.

After Summers exited the White House, he began asking Epstein for charitable advice for his wife, Elisa New, a Harvard professor working on a poetry project. Epstein and his foundations made philanthropic donations to projects associated with 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 surfaced, New’s charity made a donation “in excess” of that received to anti-exploitation organizations.