Revealed Exchanges Illustrate Epstein and Summers as Confidantes

A series of messages between found guilty offender Jeffrey Epstein and former US Treasury Secretary Larry Summers were released this week, indicating the pair acted as confidants.

These exchanges, spanning 2013 to early 2019, reveal the two men discussing intimate – and at times improper – perspectives on politics and relationships.

I am attempting to figure why [the] American elite believe if u take the life of your baby by beating and abandonment it must be irrelevant to your admission to Harvard,”|“I’m trying to|I am attempting to|I'm struggling to} understand why [the] American elite believe if u take the life of your baby by violence and desertion it must be not a factor to your admission to Harvard,”} Summers wrote to Epstein in a 2017 message. “But hit on a few women 10 years ago and can’t work at a network or think tank. KEEP CONFIDENTIAL THIS OBSERVATION.”

At that time, Harvard University was wrestling with an admissions discussion after a once incarcerated woman’s enrollment to a PhD program. Summers, a ex- president of the university who resigned amid a scandal after making sexist comments about women in academia, added in the email to Epstein: “I observed that half of the IQ in [the] world was possessed by women without mentioning they are more than 51 percent of society.”

Summers was once a prominent figure in liberal circles – a former treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the main designers of Barack Obama’s response to the market collapse, and a steadfast voice in the left-leaning punditry. But doubts have lingered about his connection with Epstein, a former associate of Donald Trump. Epstein was alleged to have run a extensive exploitation operation before his death in jail in 2019 in New York City.

Following publication of a earlier tranche of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 report, a spokesperson for Summers said that he “profoundly regrets being in contact with Epstein after his guilty verdict”.

Democratic lawmakers disclosed emails from the Epstein estate this week that indicate Epstein was of the opinion Trump was knew about conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In response, GOP lawmakers issued a much bigger collection of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.

The released materials show that Summers maintained amicable contact with the convicted child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the most recent email exchange happening only months before Epstein’s arrest.

Trump posted on Truth Social on Friday that he would be requesting the Department of Justice and the FBI to examine Epstein’s “participation 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 disdain for Trump – as well as the aspects of charitable social networking – and women. Summers, 70, disclosed to Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his overtures toward an unnamed woman, and being rebuffed.

“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 restated his remorse in a recent statement. “I have great regrets in my life,” he commented. “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 donated more than $9m to Harvard and its related programs between 1998 and 2008, and was named a visiting fellow to carry out research. The university later concluded Epstein “was missing the academic qualifications visiting fellows usually possess and his application suggested a course of study Epstein was ill-equipped to pursue”.

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

By that time Obama’s career was advancing. Summers would ultimately win appointment as director of the White House economic advisory body from January 2009 until November 2010.

After Summers exited the White House, he began soliciting Epstein for charitable advice for his wife, Elisa New, a Harvard professor pursuing a poetry project. Epstein and his foundations made gifts to projects associated with Summers’s wife, and the two men met a multiple times between 2013 and 2016, often for dinner.

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