Uncovered Communications Show Jeffrey Epstein and Summers as Close Associates

A series of communications between convicted offender Jeffrey Epstein and ex- US finance chief Larry Summers came to light this week, revealing the pair served as close contacts.

These exchanges, spanning 2013 to early 2019, show the two men discussing intimate – and at times unseemly – views on political matters and interpersonal dynamics.

I'm struggling to understand why [the] American elite believe if u kill your baby by beating and desertion it must be unimportant to your admission to Harvard,”|“I’m trying to|I am attempting to|I'm struggling to} understand why [the] American elite think if u murder your baby by beating and neglect it must be unimportant to your admission to Harvard,”} Summers wrote to Epstein in a 2017 communication. However hit on a few women 10 years ago and cannot work at a network or think tank. DO NOT SHARE THIS OBSERVATION.”

At that time, Harvard University was dealing with an admissions controversy after a once incarcerated woman’s admission to a PhD program. Summers, a one-time president of the university who lost his position amid a uproar after making gender-biased comments about women in academia, continued in the message to Epstein: “I observed that half of the IQ in [the] world was owned by women without mentioning they are more than 51 percent of the populace.”

Summers was at one time a leading light in liberal circles – a ex- treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the key engineers of Barack Obama’s approach to the financial crisis, and a stalwart figure in the left-leaning punditry. But doubts have persisted about his association with Epstein, a long-standing associate of Donald Trump. Epstein was alleged to have run a wide-ranging exploitation operation before his demise in prison in 2019 in New York City.

Following the release of a earlier set of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 article, a representative for Summers commented 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 suggest Epstein believed Trump was aware of conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In response, Conservative lawmakers released a larger collection of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.

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

Trump stated on Truth Social on Friday that he would be instructing the Department of Justice and the FBI to look into Epstein’s “participation and association” with Summers, among other prominent Democrats and business leaders.

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

“shes smart. making you pay for past errors,” Epstein replied in an exchange on 16 March. “ignore the daddy im going to go out with the motorcycle guy, you reacted well.. annoyed shows caring., no whining showed strentgh.”

Summers reiterated his remorse in a recent statement. “I harbor significant regrets in my lifetime,” he said. “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 donated more than $9m to Harvard and its affiliated programs between 1998 and 2008, and was appointed a visiting fellow to carry out research. The university later determined Epstein “was missing the scholarly credentials visiting fellows normally possess and his application proposed 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.

By that time Obama’s profile was growing. Summers would later win 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 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 twelve times between 2013 and 2016, often for dinner.

After media coverage about Epstein’s donations came out, New’s charity made a donation “more than” of that received to combatting sex trafficking organizations.