Disclosed Exchanges Illustrate Epstein and Summers as Trusted Friends

Numerous exchanges between found guilty offender Jeffrey Epstein and ex- US finance chief Larry Summers were released this week, indicating the pair acted as confidants.

The messages, dating from 2013 to early 2019, show the two men exchanging personal – and at times questionable – views on politics and interpersonal dynamics.

I am attempting to determine why [the] American elite feel if u murder your baby by violence 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 take the life of your baby by physical abuse and abandonment it must be unimportant to your acceptance to Harvard,”} Summers stated to Epstein in a 2017 communication. However flirted with a few women 10 years ago and are unable to work at a network or think tank. DO NOT REPEAT THIS OBSERVATION.”

Back then, Harvard University was dealing with an enrollment debate after a formerly incarcerated woman’s enrollment to a PhD program. Summers, a one-time president of the university who stepped down amid a scandal after making discriminatory comments about female academics, continued in the message to Epstein: I pointed out that half of the IQ in [the] world was owned by women without mentioning they are more than 51 percent of population.”

Summers was at one time a key player in the Democratic Party 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 committed figure in the left-leaning punditry. But concerns have lingered about his relationship with Epstein, a former contact of Donald Trump. Epstein was alleged to have run a broad child sex trafficking operation before his death in jail in 2019 in New York City.

Following disclosure of a earlier batch of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 piece, a agent for Summers said that he “deeply regrets being in contact with Epstein after his conviction”.

Democratic lawmakers released emails from the Epstein estate this week that imply Epstein believed Trump was aware of conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In retaliation, GOP lawmakers issued a larger batch of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.

The released materials show that Summers kept up friendly contact with the adjudicated child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the final email exchange happening only months before Epstein’s apprehension.

Trump posted on Truth Social on Friday that he would be asking 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 – notably Summers’s contempt for Trump – as well as the details of charitable social networking – and women. Summers, 70, confided in Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his advances toward an anonymous woman, and being turned down.

“shes smart. making you pay for past errors,” Epstein wrote 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 regret in a recent statement. “I harbor significant regrets in my lifetime,” 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 donated more than $9m to Harvard and its affiliated programs between 1998 and 2008, and was named a visiting fellow to carry out research. The university later found Epstein “did not have the scholarly credentials visiting fellows normally possess and his application suggested 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.

By then Obama’s profile was growing. Summers would ultimately receive appointment as director of the White House National Economic Council from January 2009 until November 2010.

After Summers left the White House, he began asking Epstein for philanthropic advice for his wife, Elisa New, a Harvard professor pursuing a poetry project. Epstein and his foundations made philanthropic donations to projects linked to 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 anti-sex-trafficking organizations.