Disclosed Exchanges Illustrate Epstein and Summers as Trusted Friends

Multiple messages between adjudicated child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and one-time US treasury head Larry Summers have emerged this week, showing the pair served as trusted allies.

Their correspondence, spanning 2013 to early 2019, show the two men exchanging intimate – and at times unseemly – opinions on political matters and personal connections.

I'm struggling to figure why [the] American elite feel if u kill your baby by physical abuse 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} figure why [the] American elite feel if u murder your baby by violence and abandonment it must be not a factor to your admission to Harvard,”} Summers wrote to Epstein in a 2017 message. Yet 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 dealing with an acceptance controversy after a formerly incarcerated woman’s admission to a PhD program. Summers, a ex- president of the university who resigned amid a controversy after making gender-biased comments about women in academia, added in the message 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 the populace.”

Summers was previously a leading light in Democratic circles – a former treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the main architects of Barack Obama’s approach to the economic downturn, and a steadfast figure in the liberal commentariat. But doubts have persisted about his association with Epstein, a longtime associate of Donald Trump. Epstein was charged with a wide-ranging exploitation operation before his passing in jail 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 “is very sorry for being in contact with Epstein after his conviction”.

Democratic lawmakers released emails from the Epstein estate this week that indicate Epstein was of the opinion Trump was aware of conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In retaliation, Republican lawmakers issued a more extensive tranche of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.

The released materials show that Summers kept up congenial contact with the adjudicated child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the last email exchange occurring 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 look into Epstein’s “role and connection” with Summers, among other well-known liberal leaders and business leaders.

In the emails, Summers and Epstein discuss politics – especially Summers’s contempt for Trump – as well as the particulars of philanthropic social networking – and women. Summers, 70, shared with Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his romantic gestures toward an unnamed woman, and being rebuffed.

“shes smart. making you pay for past errors,” Epstein responded 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 sorrow in a recent statement. “There are many things I regret in my life,” he said. “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 gave more than $9m to Harvard and its associated programs between 1998 and 2008, and was designated a visiting fellow to carry out research. The university later found Epstein “lacked 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 pleaded guilty to child sex offenses in 2008.

At that point Obama’s star was rising. Summers would ultimately receive appointment as director of the White House National Economic Council from January 2009 until November 2010.

After Summers departed the White House, he began soliciting Epstein for charitable advice for his wife, Elisa New, a Harvard professor developing 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 reporting about Epstein’s donations emerged, New’s charity made a donation “above and beyond” of that received to anti-sex-trafficking organizations.