Disclosed Communications Show Jeffrey Epstein and Summers as Close Associates

Multiple messages between adjudicated offender Jeffrey Epstein and one-time US Treasury Secretary Larry Summers were released this week, indicating the pair acted as close contacts.

These exchanges, dating from 2013 to early 2019, reveal the two men discussing private – and at times unseemly – opinions on politics and relationships.

“I’m trying to determine why [the] American elite think if u kill your baby by physical abuse and desertion it must be unimportant to your entry to Harvard,”|“I’m trying to|I am attempting to|I'm struggling to} figure why [the] American elite feel if u kill your baby by violence and desertion it must be irrelevant to your entry to Harvard,”} Summers emailed to Epstein in a 2017 message. Yet hit on a few women 10 years ago and are unable to work at a network or think tank. KEEP CONFIDENTIAL THIS OBSERVATION.”

During that period, Harvard University was dealing with an acceptance controversy after a once incarcerated woman’s admission to a PhD program. Summers, a former president of the university who resigned amid a scandal after making discriminatory comments about women scholars, went on to say in the email 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 population.”

Summers was once a leading light in the Democratic Party circles – a one-time treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the key designers of Barack Obama’s response to the financial crisis, and a steadfast figure in the progressive media. But concerns have lingered about his association with Epstein, a longtime associate of Donald Trump. Epstein was alleged to have run a broad exploitation operation before his death in prison in 2019 in New York City.

Following publication of a prior tranche of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 article, a representative for Summers commented that he “profoundly regrets being in contact with Epstein after his conviction”.

Left-leaning lawmakers released emails from the Epstein estate this week that imply Epstein thought Trump was had knowledge of conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In reply, Republican lawmakers issued a larger batch of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.

These records show that Summers maintained friendly contact with the adjudicated child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the final email exchange occurring only months before Epstein’s apprehension.

Trump posted on Truth Social on Friday that he would be instructing the Department of Justice and the FBI to investigate Epstein’s “role and connection” 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 details of charitable social networking – and women. Summers, 70, confided in Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his romantic gestures toward an anonymous woman, and being rejected.

“she is clever. ensuring you atone for previous missteps,” Epstein responded 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 affirmed his sorrow in a recent statement. “There are many things I regret in my life,” 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 related programs between 1998 and 2008, and was named a visiting fellow to conduct research. The university later concluded Epstein “lacked the scholarly credentials visiting fellows typically possess and his application outlined a course of study Epstein was unqualified to pursue”.

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

At that point Obama’s profile was growing. Summers would later win appointment as director of the White House National Economic Council from January 2009 until November 2010.

After Summers left the White House, he began soliciting Epstein for charitable advice for his wife, Elisa New, a Harvard professor working on a poetry project. Epstein and his foundations made charitable contributions to projects connected to Summers’s wife, and the two men got together a twelve times between 2013 and 2016, often for dinner.

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