Revealed Exchanges Illustrate Epstein and Summers as Close Associates

Numerous exchanges between adjudicated child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and former US Treasury Secretary Larry Summers came to light this week, revealing the pair were close contacts.

These exchanges, covering 2013 to early 2019, show the two men discussing private – and at times unseemly – perspectives on politics and personal connections.

I'm struggling to understand why [the] American elite feel if u take the life of your baby by beating and abandonment it must be irrelevant 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 murder your baby by beating and abandonment it must be not a factor to your admission to Harvard,”} Summers wrote to Epstein in a 2017 email. Yet flirted with a few women 10 years ago and cannot work at a network or think tank. DO NOT SHARE THIS IDEA.”

Back then, Harvard University was grappling with an acceptance discussion after a formerly incarcerated woman’s admission to a PhD program. Summers, a ex- president of the university who stepped down amid a uproar after making gender-biased comments about women in academia, went on to say in the email to Epstein: I noted that half of the IQ in [the] world was held by women without stating they are more than 51 percent of the populace.”

Summers was at one time a key player in liberal circles – a one-time treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the key architects of Barack Obama’s approach to the economic downturn, and a steadfast voice in the progressive media. But doubts have lingered about his connection with Epstein, a longtime contact of Donald Trump. Epstein was charged with a broad child sex trafficking operation before his passing in prison in 2019 in New York City.

Following publication of a prior batch of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 article, a spokesperson for Summers said that he “deeply regrets being in contact with Epstein after his legal finding”.

Democratic Party lawmakers disclosed emails from the Epstein estate this week that suggest Epstein thought Trump was aware of conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In retaliation, Conservative lawmakers published a larger batch of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.

The released materials show that Summers continued friendly contact with the adjudicated child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the most recent email exchange occurring only months before Epstein’s arrest.

Trump posted on Truth Social on Friday that he would be asking the Department of Justice and the FBI to examine Epstein’s “participation and relationship” with Summers, among other well-known Democratic figures and industry figures.

In the emails, Summers and Epstein talk about politics – notably Summers’s disdain for Trump – as well as the details of charitable social networking – and women. Summers, 70, shared with Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his romantic gestures toward an unidentified woman, and being rebuffed.

“she is clever. ensuring you atone for previous missteps,” 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 restated his regret 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 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 concluded Epstein “did not have the scholarly credentials visiting fellows typically possess and his application outlined a course of study Epstein was ill-equipped to pursue”.

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

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

After Summers exited the White House, he began soliciting Epstein for philanthropic advice for his wife, Elisa New, a Harvard professor developing a poetry project. Epstein and his foundations made philanthropic donations to projects linked to Summers’s wife, and the two men got together a multiple times between 2013 and 2016, often for dinner.

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