Revealed Exchanges Illustrate Jeffrey Epstein and Summers as Trusted Friends

Numerous exchanges between convicted sex criminal Jeffrey Epstein and one-time US treasury head Larry Summers have emerged this week, indicating the pair served as confidants.

These exchanges, spanning 2013 to early 2019, show the two men discussing private – and at times questionable – perspectives 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 beating and neglect it must be not a factor to your acceptance to Harvard,”|“I’m trying to|I am attempting to|I'm struggling to} determine why [the] American elite believe if u take the life of your baby by physical abuse and neglect it must be not a factor to your acceptance to Harvard,”} Summers stated to Epstein in a 2017 email. However made advances toward a few women 10 years ago and can’t work at a network or think tank. DO NOT REPEAT THIS IDEA.”

During that period, Harvard University was wrestling with an acceptance debate after a once incarcerated woman’s admission to a PhD program. Summers, a one-time president of the university who stepped down amid a uproar after making gender-biased comments about female academics, added in the email to Epstein: I noted that half of the IQ in [the] world was held by women without noting they are more than 51 percent of society.”

Summers was previously a key player in the Democratic Party circles – a former treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the main engineers of Barack Obama’s approach to the market collapse, and a committed figure in the progressive media. But doubts have persisted about his association with Epstein, a long-standing contact of Donald Trump. Epstein was charged with a broad child sex trafficking operation before his death in prison in 2019 in New York City.

Following publication of a earlier set of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 piece, a agent for Summers commented that he “is very sorry for being in contact with Epstein after his conviction”.

Left-leaning lawmakers disclosed 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, Conservative lawmakers released a more extensive collection of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.

The documents show that Summers continued congenial contact with the convicted child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the last email exchange occurring only months before Epstein’s detention.

Trump stated on Truth Social on Friday that he would be asking the Department of Justice and the FBI to investigate Epstein’s “involvement and relationship” 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 anonymous woman, and being rejected.

“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 reiterated his regret in a recent statement. “I harbor significant regrets in my lifetime,” 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 contributed more than $9m to Harvard and its associated programs between 1998 and 2008, and was appointed a visiting fellow to perform research. The university later found Epstein “was missing the educational background visiting fellows normally possess and his application outlined a course of study Epstein was ill-equipped to pursue”.

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

By that time Obama’s star was rising. Summers would later 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 asking Epstein for non-profit advice for his wife, Elisa New, a Harvard professor developing a poetry project. Epstein and his foundations made gifts to projects associated with Summers’s wife, and the two men met 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 “above and beyond” of that received to anti-exploitation organizations.