Disclosed Communications Depict Epstein and Summers as Trusted Friends

Numerous communications between found guilty child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and former US finance chief Larry Summers were released this week, showing the pair served as trusted allies.

The messages, covering 2013 to early 2019, show the two men discussing intimate – and at times questionable – perspectives on public affairs and relationships.

“I’m trying to understand why [the] American elite feel if u take the life of your baby by physical abuse and neglect 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 violence and desertion it must be unimportant to your entry to Harvard,”} Summers emailed to Epstein in a 2017 email. “But flirted with a few women 10 years ago and are unable to work at a network or think tank. DO NOT REPEAT THIS OBSERVATION.”

At that time, Harvard University was wrestling with an admissions controversy after a previously incarcerated woman’s admission to a PhD program. Summers, a one-time president of the university who resigned amid a scandal after making discriminatory comments about female academics, continued in the correspondence to Epstein: I pointed out that half of the IQ in [the] world was owned by women without stating they are more than 51 percent of the populace.”

Summers was previously a leading light in the Democratic Party circles – a former treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the key architects of Barack Obama’s approach to the financial crisis, and a steadfast voice in the liberal commentariat. But questions have lingered about his association with Epstein, a longtime contact of Donald Trump. Epstein was charged with a wide-ranging exploitation operation before his passing in custody in 2019 in New York City.

Following the release of a prior tranche of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 report, a representative for Summers said 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 imply Epstein thought Trump was aware of conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In retaliation, Republican lawmakers released a more extensive tranche of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.

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

Trump wrote on Truth Social on Friday that he would be instructing the Department of Justice and the FBI to examine Epstein’s “involvement and relationship” with Summers, among other prominent liberal leaders and corporate executives.

In the emails, Summers and Epstein converse on politics – especially Summers’s disdain 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.

“she's intelligent. holding you accountable for past mistakes,” Epstein responded 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 affirmed his remorse in a recent statement. “I have great regrets in my life,” he wrote. “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 contributed more than $9m to Harvard and its affiliated programs between 1998 and 2008, and was named a visiting fellow to conduct research. The university later determined Epstein “did not have the educational background 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 confessed to child sex offenses in 2008.

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

After Summers left the White House, he began asking Epstein for non-profit 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 met a multiple times between 2013 and 2016, often for dinner.

After media coverage about Epstein’s donations surfaced, New’s charity made a donation “above and beyond” of that received to anti-exploitation organizations.