Revealed Exchanges Show Epstein and Summers as Confidantes

Multiple messages between found guilty offender Jeffrey Epstein and ex- US Treasury Secretary Larry Summers were released this week, revealing the pair were confidants.

The messages, spanning 2013 to early 2019, reveal the two men exchanging private – and at times improper – perspectives on public affairs and personal connections.

I'm struggling to determine why [the] American elite think if u murder your baby by violence and desertion it must be unimportant 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 kill your baby by violence and desertion it must be not a factor to your acceptance to Harvard,”} Summers wrote to Epstein in a 2017 communication. However flirted with 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 dealing with an acceptance controversy after a once incarcerated woman’s enrollment to a PhD program. Summers, a former president of the university who stepped down amid a uproar after making gender-biased comments about women scholars, added in the message to Epstein: “I observed that half of the IQ in [the] world was held by women without noting they are more than 51 percent of the populace.”

Summers was once a key player in the Democratic Party circles – a ex- treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the primary designers of Barack Obama’s approach to the financial crisis, and a committed presence in the progressive media. But concerns have lingered about his relationship with Epstein, a long-standing connection of Donald Trump. Epstein was charged with a broad exploitation operation before his passing in prison in 2019 in New York City.

Following the release of a prior tranche of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 report, a spokesperson for Summers commented that he “is very sorry for being in contact with Epstein after his legal finding”.

Left-leaning lawmakers released emails from the Epstein estate this week that suggest Epstein thought Trump was knew about conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In reply, Republican lawmakers published a much bigger collection of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.

These records show that Summers continued amicable contact with the convicted 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 asking the Department of Justice and the FBI to look into Epstein’s “participation and association” with Summers, among other prominent Democratic figures and industry figures.

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

“shes smart. making you pay for past errors,” 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 regret in a recent statement. “I have great regrets in my life,” he wrote. “As I have said before, my association with Jeffrey Epstein was a major error of judgement.”

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 appointed a visiting fellow to conduct research. The university later found Epstein “was missing the academic qualifications visiting fellows normally possess and his application outlined a course of study Epstein was ill-equipped to pursue”.

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

At that point Obama’s star was rising. Summers would later secure appointment as director of the White House NEC from January 2009 until November 2010.

After Summers exited the White House, he began soliciting Epstein for non-profit advice for his wife, Elisa New, a Harvard professor developing a poetry project. Epstein and his foundations made philanthropic donations to projects connected to Summers’s wife, and the two men met a dozen times between 2013 and 2016, often for dinner.

After news about Epstein’s donations surfaced, New’s charity made a donation “more than” of that received to anti-exploitation organizations.